Imagine this: You are having a lovely day at the park, when your sweet boy, only seven years old, falls from the monkey bars and screams loudly. His wrist is swelling quickly and looks deformed. You rush to the local hospital, where they tell you he will need x-rays and an IV, and, later, that his bones will need to be reset in the emergency department.

He is still crying, scared and in pain. What can you do, as a parent, to make this experience less stressful and painful for your child?

As a pediatrician who specializes in emergency care, I have had the privilege of caring for children with unexpected injuries and illness for over 15 years. During this time, I have seen and reflected on the tremendous pain that children sometimes experience, due in part to their injuries but also in part to the medical tests and procedures we must do.

For years, I did everything I could, as a doctor, to offer the best pain relief. When I realized that there were many unanswered questions about pain treatment, I took advantage of my position as a professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta to research the issue. Over the last decade, I have worked with various teams to research the best treatments for both presenting pain (such as headaches, fracture-related pain and abdominal pain) and procedural pain (such as blood tests, urine catheter insertions and IV insertions).

Based on current research, there are several straightforward things that parents can do to help minimize their child’s pain and distress during a hospital visit.

1. Give pain medicine early

Often parents believe treating their child’s pain before visiting the doctor will make it harder to diagnose the problem. This is not the case! It is a myth that doctors need “all the pain” to be present in order to figure out what is going on. Truthfully, it is very difficult to examine a child when they are writhing in agony, and much easier when they are comfortable. Remember, no over-the-counter pain reliever is capable of masking serious ailments.

So, treat your child with over-the-counter pain relievers (e.g. Tylenol or Advil) before you go the hospital (if they are able to swallow and are not vomiting). Use proper weight-based doses; your health professional can help you with this. If you arrive at the hospital and were unable to give your child medication before coming, ask for pain relievers early. In many emergency departments, the triage nurse can treat your child’s pain even before a doctor sees them.

2. Advocate for your child

Health professionals now have decades of research that demonstrate the benefits of proper pain treatment. Properly treating pain actually improves success rates and can prevent the need for repeat attempts at the same procedure. Further, there are real consequences to ignoring children’s pain. Children who experience moderate levels of pain during infancy may have long-term physical, psychological, and behavioural changes, including increased sensitivity to pain, abnormal social behaviours when older and higher levels of anxiety before a future procedure.

Surprisingly, health professional sometimes forget to prioritize pain treatment. It is not a malicious thing. They are often busy, under-resourced, unaware of the evidence that exists and focused on “fixing the problem”—sometimes at the expense of adequate pain management.

As a parent, you can advocate for your child’s pain treatment and remind the team not to forget this key aspect of your child’s hospital visit.

3. Use physical comfort measures

There are many things we can do to make a child more physically comfortable. If they have an injured limb, splinting it can relieve a great deal of the pain. Using ice on a limb or joint injury reduces swelling and pain as well.

If you have a baby, swaddling them in blankets and rocking them can soothe them when they are in pain. Even simply cuddling your child can go a long way in comforting them during painful tests or while waiting for results.

4. Use distraction

Distraction helps children feel less distress and pain. There are low-tech options, such as bubble-blowing, playing i-Spy games, reading books, talking and listening to music. These can be offered by you or the health care team at little cost. For some children, especially as they get older, digital technology is a preferred option. Choices include tablets, smart phones, video games, and more recently, robots and virtual reality.

If you have time to plan, bring one of these options with you to your hospital visit. If you didn’t have time to plan, ask your health-care team what they can offer. Many children’s hospitals even have “child life specialists,” whose very job it is to make your child’s hospital stay less stressful.

5. Ask for numbing cream

IVs and blood-work hurt. A lot. In fact, children tell us that getting an IV is the worst and most painful part of their hospital stay. There isindisputable researchthat tells us that numbing creams (e.g. EMLA, Maxilene), when applied 30 to 60 minutes before a blood test or IV, reduce much or all of the pain of the procedure.

These products are available at most, if not all, hospitals and emergency departments, but you need to ask for them early, so that they do not cause your child’s tests or treatments to be delayed. Ideally, the health care team will offer them to you. If they don’t, ask about them!

6. Remember that sugar eases pain

Concentrated sugar drops, dripped onto a baby’s tongue two minutes before and during a medical test (such as a urine catheter insertion or a blood test)reduce pain for babies under 12 months of age. It only takes two millilitres of this seemingly magical liquid to make a medical procedure easier for a baby! There are virtually no side effects to it, and it is safe even for premature newborns.

When combined with a pacifier, the sugar drops seem to work even better for many babies. Breastfeeding is well known to help ease pain and distress, as well, and should be chosen over sugar and pacifiers, if available for a baby.

7. Ask for a pain management plan for home

Emergency department visits and hospital stays are often just a “blip” in the timeline of your child’s journey back to health. In other words, most of your child’s pain will be dealt with by you, without the benefit of nurses and doctors. When it is time to leave the hospital, ask your health-care team what to doat home. Ask what medications to use, and what non-medication things you should do. Ask them what to do if the first-choice medicines don’t work. And don’t forget to get advice on return to activity.

Children’s pain matters, and should not be ignored. There is absolutely no reason that a child should be in pain while the doctor is trying to figure out what is going on. As parents, we should feel empowered to ask for the best pain treatment possible for our children.

Samina Aliis a professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of Alberta.

]]>news,CommentMon, 25 Sep 2017 19:22:58 +0200 COMMENTARY || Fierce debate roars to life over grizzly bear hunthttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--fierce-debate-roars-to-life-over-grizzly-bear-hunt/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--fierce-debate-roars-to-life-over-grizzly-bear-hunt/Management of grizzlies requires those on either side of the issue to find some common ground.By COURTNEY HUGHES and LINDSEY DEWART

There’s no shortage of controversy surrounding the British Columbia government’s decision to stop the grizzly bear trophy hunt.

The province announced in late August that it’s moving towards permanently closing grizzly trophy hunting by the end of November, with immediate closure in the Great Bear Rainforest. Hunting grizzlies for their meat is still permitted.

Supporters of trophy hunting view the ban as a political decision that ignores scientific information, diminishes economic opportunities and tarnishes hunters’ reputations.

Opponents applaud the ban, arguing the hunt is outdated, lacks concrete evidence to support its existence and is barbaric.

Certainly the ban could signal changes for future grizzly bear management across other jurisdictions.

A North American debate

Outfitters in the Yukon have already raised concerns, calling for more scientific studies to inform bear management decisions.

Alberta may also face increased scrutiny and pressure to reconsider a grizzly hunt in light of research on bear populations and public tolerance for conflict.

There’s also controversy about hunting grizzlies in the United States, with Yellowstone’s recent decision to remove the bears from their endangered status list and the move to stop protecting bears on Alaskanreserves.

So what to make of these arguments for and against trophy hunting grizzlies? Is trophy hunting a legitimate management tool? And is it even ethical to control the grizzly population that way?

Hunters say bear population kept under control

Supporters say trophy hunting is an effective population management tool, and can help mitigate human-bear conflicts. In B.C., trophy hunters say grizzly bears are the most closely managed and conservatively hunted species in the province.

Prior to the ban, the former B.C. government released a 2016 scientific review on grizzly bear hunting and said adequate safeguards were in place to ensure long-term stability of bear populations. However, habitat loss was instead noted as a significant challenge, and improvements in monitoring bears were required.

The review also noted B.C. produced more DNA-based population estimates for grizzlies than any other jurisdiction. Consequently, hunters argue bear management must be informed by science rather than opinion or emotions.

Even the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has suggested “in certain limited and rigorously controlled cases … scientific evidence has shown that trophy hunting can be an effective conservation tool.”

Hunting male bears

This view is supported in other literature, with some researchers adding a regulated bear hunt may increase public acceptance of living alongside grizzly bears. However, this could also be perceived as giving people the power to manage problem bears as they deem fit—not necessarily a palatable concept for everyone.

Biologists also point out that trophy hunters generally target male bears because they’re bigger, and that may not pose the greatest threat to the grizzly population as it would if female bears were the primary focus.

Of 73 licences allocated in 2005 for grizzly bear hunting in Alberta, only 10 bears were hunted and killed. Instead, poaching, death after being mistaken for the more common black bears and roadway collisions may pose greater risk.

In B.C., however, opponents contend that hunting kills an average of 297 bears annually.

Opponents also argue that the lack of monitoring hunting raises serious questions about whether it’s an effective way to control the grizzly population or reduce bear-human conflict.

Is it a management tool?

Additionally, the same authors found that because hunting is not evenly distributed across bear habitats, social structure can be destabilized, and in turn this can impact the population.

As for conflict reduction, a 2016 study found that bear hunting did not reduce the frequency of bear/human confrontations. Human behaviour and poor garbage management were likely conflict culprits.

A 2009 study, meantime, suggested the complex life histories, behaviours and social systems of animals like grizzlies mean any predictions that scientists make about trophy hunting as a management tool are unreliable.

Bear-viewing more lucrative?

Economic opportunities are also commonly raised in the grizzly hunt debate.

Guide outfitters in B.C. say hunting has brought in more than $350 million annually (for bears and other wildlife) from national and international hunters. Some say the ban will result in lost revenue, affecting not just personal livelihoods but entire communities.

Opponents, however, argue trophy hunting is a corrupt practice globally, where revenues are unfairly or disproportionately meted out across communities and only benefit a few.

Furthermore, they say a live bear is far more economically valuable than a dead one. The Center for Responsible Travel found more revenue was generated from bear-viewing in the Great Bear Rainforest, and provided more job opportunities.

Swapping bullets for binoculars

Some outfitters suggest the hunting ban wouldn’t affect their businesses, because they’d shift to bear-viewing. Some B.C. resorts have already encouraged hunters to trade in their bullets for binoculars as an incentive to never hunt grizzlies again.

Opponents also believe trophy hunting is immoral and wasteful. To some, it’s inconceivable to kill an animal for sport.

Many were disappointed in the B.C. trophy hunting decision because they’d hoped for a complete ban on grizzly hunting, particularly since the animals are not commonly eaten like elk or deer. Hunting of animals that are consumed as food is regarded as less offensive.

On the motivations of trophy hunters, studies suggest the “prospect of displaying large and/or dangerous (animals) at least in part underlies the behaviour of many contemporary hunters.”

The same authors suggest men who hunt carnivores are signalling they can afford it, which helps them accrue status and attention, particularly from potential mates.

So, what are wildlife managers to do when society remains so deeply divided on trophy hunting? Who gets to decide how grizzly bears should be managed?

This debate is certainly not new to wildlife management, and has become an increasingly contentious topic as biologists, policy makers and the broader public ponders how to govern the animals that share our planet.

What’s next?

In B.C., the government has attempted to temper the debate by permitting hunting grizzlies for meat, despite compliance concerns. In the Yukon, there’s a call for more studies to help inform decision-making, and our ongoing research, not yet published, has found some in rural Alberta are asking questions about reopening a grizzly hunting season.

Perhaps trophy hunting isn’t the greatest threat to North America’s grizzly bears. Certainly, habitat loss and population fragmentation, as well as climate change, pose even greater risks.

That’s why now, more than ever, we need consolidated action to manage grizzlies—not more argument. If we want grizzly bears to remain in our future, we need to set aside our differences and find some common ground.

Courtney Hughes is a conservation biology PhD candidate at the University of Alberta. Lindsey Dewart is an assistant researcher at the U of A.

]]>news,CommentMon, 18 Sep 2017 20:14:16 +0200COMMENTARY: Legal weed: How to talk to your teenagers and kids about ithttp://www.folio.ca/commentary-legal-weed-how-to-talk-to-your-teenagers-and-kids-about-it/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary-legal-weed-how-to-talk-to-your-teenagers-and-kids-about-it/Cannabis is the most widely available and most used illegal substance in the world, and Canadian youth are among the top users. Parents and their kids need to prepare for the day it becomes legal in Canada in 2018.By GERAINT OSBOURNE

Weed, pot, grass, marijuana—or cannabis to use the proper terminology—will be legal in Canada from July 1, 2018. Anyone over the age of 18 will be able to walk into a store and buy up to 30 grams of regulated product. While most Canadians approve of this new policy, many also believe the law will fail to stop more children using the drug.

So how should we talk to kids and teenagers about this new legal drug? What can parents do with legalization just months away?

This is a question that I—as a cannabis researcher and father of 17-year-old twin boys—take very seriously, and for good reason. Globally, cannabis is the most available and most used illegal substance and Canadian youth have some of the highest use rates in the world.

The good news is that parents have many tools at their fingertips to protect their children and teens. Here, I offer six steps to help you navigate this tricky terrain.

Start family discussions early

The best defence against any kind of drug abuse is knowledge and education. Being properly informed about drugs is central to the harm reduction approach to drugs that is slowly gaining momentum across Canada and other parts of the world.

This approach recognizes that drug abuse is a public health and education problem, not a crime problem. Much of our successes in combating drinking and driving, and reducing cigarette smoking, have come through information and education initiatives.

Education starts at home. And it should begin as early as possible, with age- appropriate language like that used in It’s Just a Plant, a book designed for parents who want to talk to their children about cannabis.

Discussing cannabis with your child should be no different than discussing alcohol and nicotine. A frank conversation about all substances, both legal and illegal, is essential to preventing the abuse of any drug among our youth.

Find evidence-based information

Parents do need to educate themselves about drugs, rather than relying on their own personal experiences or media scare stories. There is a great deal of research available on cannabis and other drugs. But this wealth of information can understandably be overwhelming.

Drug Free Kids Canada is a registered charity offering offers resources for parents to talk to their kids and teens about drugs.

Fortunately, there are a number of informative and reliable online sources available to Canadian parents, such as the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, Drug Free Kids Canada and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Explain addiction and brain damage

Kids need to know that cannabis is not harmless. And that it has become much more potent over the years. The best decision, like with all legal and illegal substances, is abstinence. Undoubtedly, from a health perspective, if people can get through life without using caffeine, tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, they are better off.

However, because we live in a society saturated with drugs (just check out the beer and pharmaceutical ads on television or the long coffee shop lineups), we need to be pragmatic.

Our children will be exposed to many drugs throughout the course of their lives, including cannabis. They may decide to experiment or use more regularly. They need to know what the potential harms are, as well as the potential benefits. They also need to know the differences between use and abuse.

A free online learning module from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use explains the effects of cannabis use during adolescence.

While much more research is required, the key health concerns with cannabis are addiction, mental illness, damage to the developing brain, driving while intoxicated and cardiovascular disease.

Talk about socializing, creativity and sex

Besides discussing the harms associated with the abuse of cannabis, parents need to have an honest discussion about why people use it—without relying on outdated stereotypes or stigmatizing users. This can be more difficult for parents who don’t use cannabis themselves as they may think that such a discussion will encourage use.

But by explaining why and how people use cannabis, parents can demystify the drug. They can demonstrate that, like alcohol, cannabis can be used responsibly by most people in a variety of social contexts.

This “normalizing” of cannabis reduces its status as a choice for the rebellious. It makes the formerly mysterious and taboo drug rather boring and mundane. This may help explain why cannabis use by youth in Colorado has not increased significantly since the drug was legalized.

So why do people use cannabis recreationally?

For centuries, people all over the globe have used cannabis for many reasons. The research has found that—like alcohol users—most use cannabis as a rational choice to enhance certain activities.

When used properly, it can help with relaxation and concentration, making many activities more enjoyable. Eating, listening to music, socializing, watching movies, playing sports, having sex and being creative are some things some people say cannabis makes more enjoyable.

Sometimes people use cannabis to enhance spiritual experiences or to make mundane tasks like chores more fun. But most importantly, most users recognize that there’s a time and place for use and have integrated it into their lives without forgoing their daily obligations and responsibilities.

Teach responsible cannabis use

The responsible use of cannabis is identical to the responsible use of alcohol. The key principles are: understand the effects of the different strains (sativa, indica and hybrids) of cannabis; avoid mixing with other drugs; use in a safe environment; use in moderation; don’t let use interfere with responsibilities; and don’t use in contexts that may endanger the lives of others, such as driving while under the influence.

Many of the health concerns relating to cannabis are associated with heavy chronic use or, in other words, abuse of the drug. As with most things in life, moderation is key. Moderation—in frequency and amount—is important for the responsible use of any substance.

Recent research suggests that many cannabis users, like alcohol users, use responsibly. If parents reinforce the importance of responsible use, their children will be far less likely to suffer the harms associated with cannabis.

Just say “know,” not “no!”

History has shown us that the war on drugs has been an abysmal failure. Prohibition hasn’t prevented people—young or old—from using drugs. Prohibition created a black market, gang wars, corruption and dangerous products.

A harm reduction approach to cannabis regulates a safer quality product and focuses on informing people about the potential risks and benefits of cannabis use. Educating our youth about cannabis and responsible use—through talking with them and listening to them—will be far more effective and safer than trying to stop them using it.

When it comes to kids and weed, it’s better to say “know” than “just say no!”

]]>news,Comment,Society & CultureThu, 14 Sep 2017 08:00:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Our dangerous national trail is nothing to celebratehttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--our-dangerous-national-trail-is-nothing-to-celebrate/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--our-dangerous-national-trail-is-nothing-to-celebrate/What we have is a dangerous motorway, not a national trail. Parliament should adopt a Trans Canada Trail Act that establishes minimum standards for safety and quality.By EDMUND A. AUNGER

Last weekend, the Trans Canada Trail organization triumphantly threw “a huge party” to celebrate a “momentous collective achievement” and the realization of a “major Canadian dream.”

The organization proudly announced that after 25 years and the hard work of “devoted and fun-loving volunteers, partners and donors,” the Great Trail of Canada was finally connected: “It’s the longest trail system in the world, and it’s in our backyard. This is Canada’s path.”

The Canadian government generously contributed $1 million to pay for “a massive party in the nation’s capital” and some 200 smaller events elsewhere.

Nobody wants to be a party pooper but, like the small boy who saw that the emperor wore no clothes, we need to speak out: Canada does not have a national trail. We have been duped.

We were promised a real trail. The legacy project proposed by Canada 125, and piloted by founding president Bill Pratt, was a cross-country greenway — a linear park — accessible to hikers and cyclists of all ages and abilities, and to be built as far as possible from motorized vehicles.

What we’ve got now is essentially a dangerous motorway. The alleged “trail” includes 8,500 kilometres of roads and highways, and 7,000 kilometres of lakes and waterways. (In northwestern Ontario, where the trail splashes and thrashes through 2,000 kilometres of treacherous waterway, hikers and cyclists must travel — at great risk to their lives — on the narrow two-lane Trans-Canada Highway.)

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians — including many children — donated money for construction of a safe and accessible trail; not for the designation of a perilous and inaccessible road. Founding sponsor DaimlerChrysler Canada summed up donor expectations: “You will never see a Jeep on the Trans Canada Trail. But you will see Canadians of all ages enjoying the Trail for recreation activities like walking, hiking, cycling, horseback riding and cross-country skiing.”

Although Pratt had intended to build the cross-country trail economically and efficiently on abandoned rail lines — already paid for by Canadian taxpayers — negotiations with railway companies proved unexpectedly difficult. Only after receiving substantial tax concessions did Canadian Pacific and CN Rail finally agree to transfer 2,100 kilometres of rights-of-way — but only 210 kilometres could be used for the trail.

Provinces and municipalities also purchased several thousand kilometres of rail line, however, they gave priority to local concerns, and they — not the TCT organization — have established rules and regulated usage.

By 1999, it was evident TCT would neither set appropriate standards, nor respect explicit commitments. When Canadian Geographic reported that nearly 30 per cent of the 16,200-kilometre trail would be opened to motorized all-terrain vehicles, former president Pratt responded that this was completely unacceptable and against the TCT’s basic policy.

He pleaded unsuccessfully that TCT assert its authority and refuse recognition to any trail section used by motorized vehicles.

In abdicating its responsibility to set and enforce minimum standards, TCT has not only betrayed its trustful donors and tarnished our international reputation, it has also placed lives at risk. The Great Trail’s well-publicized core principles, notably its promise “to provide a safe and enjoyable trail experience on high-quality trail,” have become little more than a misleading marketing ploy.

Parliament should end this dangerous charade by adopting a Trans Canada Trail Act that establishes minimum standards for safety and quality, and regulates use of the terms “Trans Canada Trail” and “The Great Trail of Canada.” No trail should be so designated unless it is genuinely non-motorized and recognizably world-class.

For an exemplary precedent, parliamentarians need look no further than the Trans-Canada Highway Act, first passed in 1949. Although a cross-country highway had been recommended as early as 1912, provincial and municipal governments were focused on local road projects and had little interest in supporting an interprovincial route passing through sparsely populated regions.

The federal law provided financial incentives for construction of a cross-country roadway taking the shortest practical east-west route and meeting agreed standards.

Everyone loves a party. But let’s wait until we can celebrate a true achievement, the completion of a real cross-country trail. Not the promotion of a booby-trapped mirage.

Edmund A. Aunger is a professor emeritus in political science at the University of Alberta, Campus Saint-Jean. He recently completed a 12,500-kilometre Trans Canada Trail cycling ride from Victoria to Charlottetown.

This past summer saw record attendance at pride festivals across Canada, yet this was juxtaposed with more visible and vocal attacks against the LGBTQ community with rainbow crosswalks vandalized and pride flags slashed and burned, including at a local high school in Edmonton.

While Canadian society is growing more inclusive, there is still much reluctance and resistance when it comes to supporting LGBTQ youth in schools. Trans students are still frequently denied access to bathrooms in accordance with their lived gender identity and some parental extremist groups seek to “out” students without their permission.

Recent research indicates that the vast majority of Canadian teachers (85 per cent) now support LGBTQ-inclusive education, yet may not have the training or knowledge to know how to effectively create safer schools for LGBTQ youth.

As we head back to school, here are 10 proven strategies that all schools can engage to help build inclusive communities for all students.

1. Help start, strengthen, and sustain gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in your school. Alberta, Ontario, and Manitoba all have government legislation supporting a student’s right to create a GSA. The research is clear. GSAs can and do save lives. If you are a teacher, consider being a GSA advisor and display safe space stickers and posters to show you are an ally.

2. Staff can volunteer to serve as a “safe contact” in their school. Each month they can bring an update on LGBTQ resources, activities, and events to staff and/or school council meetings.

3. Update school forms, websites, and communications to become gender-inclusive. Recognize that gender exists on a spectrum, not a binary.

4. Review your library and classroom resources and add age-appropriate LGBTQ books and films. Literature can be a lifeline for many youth. Students need to see themselves in the words and the world around them. Society has changed rapidly, yet schools often fail to reflect this diversity and remain very socially conservative spaces.

5. Encourage your school board to pass comprehensive sexual-orientation, gender-identity and gender-expression policies with detailed implementation plans. Policies set clear expectations and authorize all staff to meet their legal obligations and become proactive in creating respectful, welcoming, inclusive, and safe working and learning environments.

6. Address homophobic and transphobic bullying and derogatory language whenever you see or hear it. Teachers and parents are very important role models. Remember, your silence signals consent and makes you complicit in the act of discrimination.

7. Make inclusion a priority. Engage in specific LGBTQ professional development for yourself and school staff. Education is the best answer to ignorance. Knowledge is the key to building inclusive human rights cultures in your school, classroom and community.

8. Create all-gender universal washrooms in your school. Washrooms can be dangerous spaces for many students, regardless of how they identify. Prioritize safety and inclusion over misinformation and fear.

9. Incorporate LGBTQ topics as part of your classroom discussions, curriculum, and lesson plans. LGBTQ students need to see themselves in their text books and in the halls and walls of their school. Visibility helps to challenge stereotypes and tells LGBTQ youth they exist and are valued.

10. Celebrate diversity and disrupt heteronormativity by connecting with local LGBTQ communities and agencies. Invite LGBTQ guest speakers into your classroom. Celebrate important awareness days like National Coming Out Day, Pink Shirt Day, and International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. Help show pride in your school and community.

Kristopher Wells is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education and the director of the Institute for Sexual Minorities Studies and Services.

]]>news,Comment,Society & CultureThu, 07 Sep 2017 20:02:15 +0200COMMENTARY || Oklahoma isn’t working. Can anyone fix this failing American state?http://www.folio.ca/commentary--oklahoma-isnt-working-can-anyone-fix-this-failing-american-state/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--oklahoma-isnt-working-can-anyone-fix-this-failing-american-state/Poverty, police abuse, record prison rates and education cuts that mean a four-day school week, Oklahoma is a cautionary tale of the downside of having low taxes and a lot of oil.By RUSSELL COBB

A teacher panhandles on a roadside to buy supplies for her third-grade classroom. Entire school districts resort to four-day school weeks. Nearly one in four children struggle with hunger.

A city overpass crumbles and swarms of earthquakes shake the region—the underground disposal of oil and gas industry wastes have caused the tremors. Wildfires burn out of control: cuts to state forestry services mean that out-of-state firefighting crews must be called in.

A paralyzed and mentally ill veteran is left on the floor of a county jail. Guards watch for days until the prisoner dies. A death row inmate violently convulses on the gurney as prison officials experiment with an untested cocktail for execution.

Do these snapshots of Oklahoma show a failing state?

Added up, the facts evoke a social breakdown across the board. Not only does Oklahoma lead the country in cuts to education, it’s also number one in rates of female incarceration, places second in male incarceration, and also leads in school expulsion rates. One in 12 Oklahomans have a felony conviction.

Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University Law Center wrote in an essay that states begin to fail when the contract between citizens and public institutions breaks down. States “lose control over the means of violence, and cannot create peace or stability for their populations or control their territories. They cannot ensure economic growth or any reasonable distribution of social goods.”

It may be hard to believe, but entry-level employees with a high school diploma at the popular convenience store QuikTrip make more than teachers in Oklahoma.

For four years running, the state has led the nation in tax cuts to education, outpacing second-place Alabama by double digits. Years of tax cuts and budget shortfalls mean that Oklahoma has fallen to 49th in teacher pay. Spending per pupil has dropped by 26.9 per cent since 2008.

Things have become so bad that the Cherokee nation, a tribe systematically cheated out of its land allotments in the creation of the modern state of Oklahoma, recently donated $5 million to the state’s education fund.

Lisa Newman, a high school teacher from El Reno, for instance, recounts a history of cutbacks, increases in class sizes, and her stagnant salary. She takes in less than $1,000 a month after all her bills are paid.

Newman, who recently moved back into her parents’ house at age 39, contemplates a declining standard of living while she raises two boys and works about 50 hours a week.

Shelby Eagan, Mitchell Elementary School’s 2016 teacher of the year, decided she’d had enough after a referendum to raise teacher pay through an increase in state sales tax was defeated in last November’s election.

“I would like to have kids some day,” she says. But that’s unlikely for now: her rent has gone up. She also buys her own supplies for her classroom.

Eagan is originally from Kansas City but she loves Oklahoma. She found her calling teaching in an urban elementary school. She teaches the children “how to tie their shoes, blow their nose, have superhero fights that don’t turn violent”, among other things. All of her students are on free or reduced-fee lunch programs.

After the referendum defeat of SQ 779, Eagan decided to look elsewhere for a better gig. Eagan found a job in the area that would increase her salary by $10,000 right off the bat.

Her decision to leave was mirrored in May by the 2016 Oklahoma teacher of the year, Shawn Sheehan, who wrote in an op-ed: “Teaching in Oklahoma is a dysfunctional relationship.”

At the Oklahoma Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, policy analyst Carly Putnam says education is only one part of the state’s dysfunction. Putnam cites the example of a popular support program for developmental disabilities which gave families of limited means resources to take care of their loved ones. It takes roughly 10 years just to get on a waiting list to be considered for the support waiver to help a disabled person, meaning applications filed in 2006 are just now being considered. Many of the disabled patients have died by the time their files are being considered.

One student with a bipolar disorder was nearly arrested and expelled, Eagan says. “No one had the training to deal with his manic or depressive days. One day, another student kicked him in the head during a manic day.”

This triggered Eagan’s student, who punched the offending student. Administrators decided to expel Eagan’s student and charge him with assault. Eagan eventually talked them out of pressing criminal charges, but the experience left her with what was a visceral encounter with the school-to-prison pipeline.

No country for abandoned men

The case of Elliot Williams is a stark example of how Oklahoma’s public institutions is failing its citizens. Williams, who had been honorably discharged from the army, had a diagnosed bipolar condition. After he experienced a few nights of insomnia at his parents’ house in Owasso, relatives brought him to a hotel.

Williams threw a soda can in the lobby and walked into a door. Hotel staff called police. An officer who arrived at the scene found Williams “rambling on about God and eating dirt.” The officer and the staff concluded that Williams was suffering from “some kind of mental breakdown.”

They escorted him out of the hotel and called his parents. At some point, while outside the hotel, Williams threatened to kill himself. A cop ordered him to stay seated on a curb. Williams got up and moved towards a police officer, who pepper-sprayed him.

Police arrested Williams, charging him with obstruction. The small town jail of Owasso wasn’t equipped to deal with a case like Williams’s. Instead of a suitable mental health facility, Williams wound up in Tulsa County Jail.

It was Williams’s bad luck to be transferred to a jail that only weeks earlier, federal agents had faulted for “a prevailing attitude of indifference.”

The jail was run by Sheriff Stanley Glanz, who would become infamous as the man who assigned his friend, Robert Bates, an insurance agent with no police training, to a violent crimes task force.

Tulsa County Jail was certainly no place for a man with a bipolar condition. And yet, with Williams in the midst of a breakdown, he was tackled and body-slammed to the ground by an officer. Williams had difficulty walking. He was transferred to a holding cell, where he rammed his head against a wall.

Seeing Williams unable to move, the head nurse allegedly told him to “quit fucking faking.” He defecated on himself and officers dragged him to a shower. He still didn’t move. To prove that it was an act, an officer put a small cup of water just outside Williams’s grasp. He never reached it.

For three days, jail officials—guards and medical staff—expressed “concern” about Williams but never called 911 or requested a hospital transfer. He was left in a medical cell, where a video camera recorded him lying there, unable to eat or drink. Five days after he was put in the Tulsa County Jail, Williams died of complications from a broken neck and serious dehydration.

Audits and inspections of the jail revealed decades of indifference to sexual abuse, overcrowding and overt racism. From one angle, the Tulsa County Jail is par for the course of the American criminal justice system. But from another—and in the opinion of the jury that ultimately sided with Williams by awarding his estate $10.25 million—Tulsa had seriously failed.

Shane Matson is a geologist whose family has been in the Oklahoma oil business for three generations. For Matson, the discovery of new reserves in Oklahoma is a good thing. The “dark outlook about the future of energy” is gone, he says. Cheap oil and gas are now abundant.

Matson fought Obama-era regulations in Osage County, where he was exploring for oil. But his industry’s political influence has now reached untoward extremes, he thinks.

Chesapeake Energy, Devon Energy and Continental Resources have lobbied to lower the state’s gross production tax, citing competition from other states. They’ve gotten their way, with Oklahoma’s oil and gas production taxes now significantly below those of its rival Texas.

One of the state’s richest men and its most renowned philanthropist, George Kaiser, has been urging an increase in the gross production tax for years. And there’s reason to believe it’s not necessarily a partisan issue. Until recently, North Dakota had been able to expand its education system with a 6.5 per cent gross production tax.

And despite the tax cuts, the Tulsa-based Newfield Exploration moved most of its staff to Houston.

Industry leaders, not surprisingly, see the issue through an entirely different lens.

Chad Warmington, the president of the Oklahoma Oil & Gas Association, says that about a quarter of the state’s tax revenue comes from oil and gas while the industry employs about 13 per cent of the state’s workforce. Dependence on taxes from oil and gas “has left the state unprepared for inevitable price downturns of a cyclical industry,” Warmington says. The current downturn, then, “has led many to question the state’s management of the tax dollar.”

The Oklahoma Policy Institute calculates that the current regime of tax breaks and refunds costs around half a billion dollars in decreased revenue every year. That figure, if correct, would cover the current $220 million budget gap in education but would still not be enough to make up for the state’s entire budget shortfall.

Broken safety net

Of course, many would not recognize their state in this description. One of the most respected bloggers in Tulsa, Michael Bates, said the whole idea of Oklahoma as a failing state was “hysterical and overwrought.”

After all, downtown Tulsa and Oklahoma City are thriving. The cities have been rated by Kiplinger among the “best cities in America to start a business.” Tulsa has rolling hills, parks and delicious barbecue. Tulsa People enumerates the city’s private schools. Affordable housing prices are the envy of the nation and suburban school districts boast gleaming new facilities. And yes, some conservatives think the four-day week is good for “traditional” families, allowing for more time with the kids. For affluent families, the extra day can be spent on college prep or sports. But for middle- and working-class parents, it means lost wages or added expenses for childcare.

And for poor families, like those of Eagan’s students, who rely on the free lunch program, it means hunger. Local food banks have to pick up the slack and deliver meals when the kids aren’t in school.

Nearly everyone I talked to for this story—regardless of political affiliation—was startled by the downward spiral of basic social services.

There is something deeply ingrained and unyielding in the state’s conservatism.

When I was in elementary school, I remember seeing my mother struggle with hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid medical bills after my dad died of heart disease. She was suddenly a single mother with an incomplete college education, no professional training and a mountain of debt. We depended on the generosity of friends and family to get by.

I recently asked her why she never went on welfare or food stamps while she worked as a daycare teacher and raised me.

“Welfare is for poor people,” she said. “We weren’t them.”

If you rely on the progressive account, it’s easy to think Red America is dominated by a majority of angry racists lighting a match to liberal democracy. And people in the hipper areas of Tulsa seem to want the city to divorce the state.

But there are signals that some Oklahomans want a change of direction. David Blatt, the executive director of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, and someone who’s happy to work with “reasonable” Republicans, points to three referenda widely expected to be voted down that actually won.

Oklahomans voted to reclassify certain drug possession crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, bucking the “law and order” line of the Trump campaign. They also voted to deny public funds to return a Ten Commandments monument to the state capitol, and against a bill to rewrite the state’s constitution that would have made it harder to regulate big agribusiness. All this in a state that gave Trump the third-widest margin of victory in America.

Meanwhile, facing another budget meltdown and a teacher exodus, the state raised cigarette taxes to cover the shortfall only to have the supreme court rule the law unconstitutional.

Governor Mary Fallin had an answer: prayer. The governor issued an official proclamation making October 13 Oilfield Prayer Day. Christians were to gather in churches and hope for a little divine intervention targeting falling worldwide oil prices. Fallin quickly back-pedalled when it was pointed out that her proclamation only included Christians. “Prayer is good for everyone,” she reasoned.

Prayer Day came and went. The price of oil has barely budged since. Three weeks after Prayer Day, however, the earth shook. A 5.0 magnitude earthquake hit the town of Cushing, a place whose claim to fame is the “Oil Pipeline Crossroads of the World.”

Maybe God had something to say about Oklahoma after all.

Russell Cobb is an associate professor in modern languages and cultural studies at the University of Alberta. He is at work on a book provisionally titled You Dumb Okie: Race, Class, and Lies in Flyover Country.

]]>news,Comment,Society & CultureThu, 31 Aug 2017 20:40:24 +0200COMMENTARY || Our role is to support students when they are ready to be studentshttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--our-role-is-to-support-students-when-they-are-ready-to-be-students/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--our-role-is-to-support-students-when-they-are-ready-to-be-students/We do them no favours if we help them stay in university when they are not functioning as students because of a mental health crisis.By ANDRÉ COSTOPOULOS

Demand for mental health support is rapidly growing on Canadian campuses. In response, we have poured more and more resources into clinical support services. Despite the additional investment, both waiting times and student distress are increasing. In a further bid to improve services, many universities have adopted some form of triage orstepped care modelthat allows them to identify the most serious and complex cases of distress and provide them urgent services in a timely manner. Even that has failed to make a dent in the problem. For every critical case we manage to address, many nearly-as-critical cases have to wait.

In some ways, these short-term strategies to address a growing crisis appear to be making things worse. And students are not the only ones bearing the cost. The inadequacy of our current system puts significant pressure on professors, families, student peers and university staff, such as advisers and clinicians who must increasingly improvise and accept additional responsibility for filling the gaps. This emerging crisis threatens to spiral out of control if we don’t make some significant changes in our approach.

Triage of cases into categories of severity is certainly part of the solution, but we have been going about it the wrong way. Under pressure to meet the immediate needs of severely mentally ill and sometimes actively suicidal students, we have understandably prioritized resources in their direction. Not surprisingly, helping these students mobilizes a very significant proportion of our resources. The problem is that we are not helping them as students. Let me explain.

Our students are people first, and we and they should take care of their well-being as people first. But, as universities, our role is to support them as students when they are ready to be students. In the long-term, we are not doing students a favour if we help them stay in university when they are not functioning as students. The goal of triage in a student services environment should be to identify the people whom we can support as students and those whom we must temporarily refer to external resources because we can’t effectively support them. The criteria for “functioning as a student” must of course take fully into account our duty to accommodate. This is a discussion we largely haven’t had in the academy. It is a necessary one.

Students in crisis often want to stay in university. It can be very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to convince them that they need to prioritize their well-being and that they need to take care of themselves as people and get better before they can return to fulfill their academic potential. University and society don’t make it easy for students to accept that. There are administrative barriers to temporarily leaving a program of study, and there are even more significant barriers to rejoining it later. There may be substantial financial consequences for an abandoned semester, and it can do long-term damage to a student’s record. Universities have to address those as part of the factors that directly affect the wellness and mental health of our students.

Society in general, and employers in particular, put pressure on students to have an unbroken chain of success leading to a career. We need to hear from people outside the university that taking care of yourself is OK and that it is better to take time to get well in order to do well later. Universities and the broader community need to let students know that taking a break instead of having a catastrophic semester is a sign of responsibility, resilience and diligence, not a failure in itself. We need to reform our policies to make it easier for students to make that decision. We especially need to work on making it easier for students to return to university without penalties after a necessary absence.

Beyond addressing the barriers to leaving and rejoining programs of study, we must examine our policies and procedures and address the ones that create unnecessary unwellness for our students. Universities are in some ways necessarily stressful places. They are competitive environments in which we expect people to grow and tackle new challenges. Some of the ways in which we do this, however, impose unnecessary stress and needlessly worsen mental health. We need to keep the good, productive stress, and get rid of the unnecessary, destructive stress.

As we reduce some of the barriers to convincing students in crisis to take time off, and as we address unnecessary sources of unwellness in our environment, we need to identify the external resources to which we can refer our students in full confidence that they will receive appropriate care. This is made difficult by the fact that the public mental health system is also challenged and overburdened. In many jurisdictions, waiting times for care in the public system are months longer than they already are in the university system. International students, whom we recruit actively, sometimes have very limited access to any health resources at all outside the university.

Unfortunately, universities are often not equipped to deal with the most complex and urgent cases that need the attention of the public system. We need to work hard as institutions to build the networks and partnerships that will allow us to get our students the extra resources they need. This requires a serious policy conversation with governments at all levels, and strenuous advocacy efforts on the part of university administrations for increased resources in the public system. Resources must be invested in public health systems to help persons in deep crisis who happen to be university students.

If all these things are required of universities, governments and private-sector employers to address the problem, one might ask: what does it require of students? It requires that they increasingly take responsibility for their own well-being by choosing to invest in their wellness, by taking breaks from studying when they need to, and by being in university when they are ready and not before. Exams and papers are not designed to see how well students can do when they are not well. Too many students hurt themselves in the long-term by being students when they shouldn’t be. Let’s all work to create conditions under which they can make the healthy choice.

André Costopoulos is vice-provost and dean of students at the University of Alberta.

]]>news,CommentMon, 28 Aug 2017 23:49:11 +0200COMMENTARY || Think disability is a tragedy? We pity youhttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--think-disability-is-a-tragedy-we-pity-you/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--think-disability-is-a-tragedy-we-pity-you/UAlberta disability ethics expert says ‘ableism’ contributes to the isolation of children with disabilities and a misunderstanding of a natural part of human experience.By HEIDI JANZ and MICHELLE STACK

You pick your child up at school and see her hanging out with a child with autism. Your reaction is: A) pride, B) confusion, C) concern, or D) pity. If you said yes to any of the above you could have ableism.

In schools, disability prejudice impacts opportunities for connection and learning for all children. Another word for it is “ableism”—a form of discrimination that favours able-bodied people. It has long permeated our culture through stereotypes—from hunchback movie villains to the idea of the “supercrip” that defies all odds.

Ableism contributes to the isolation of children with disabilities. It encourages students without disabilities to see relationships with their disabled peers as helper-helpee relationships, rather than reciprocal friendships. Worst of all, ableism teaches children early on that some lives are more worthy than others. This can have deadly consequences — evidenced by the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, and by more recent events such as the 2016 massacre in a home for the disabled in Japan.

As a society, we need to say no to ableism. We must see disability for what it is—a natural part of human experience, rather than something to be feared.

We are two university professors, working in disability ethics and in education, who met in high school. Our friendship was very nearly destroyed by ableism. We offer our story as an illustration—of how disability prejudice can afflict all kids, and how to avoid it, in the classroom and at home.

A ‘normal’ friend

We were both giving mainstream education one last chance when we met in Grade 11 English at Alberta College. What brought us together was our mutual (warped) sense of humour and bewilderment over why some people thought being just like everyone else was a good thing.

So, how did ableism almost destroy our friendship?

Well, there was the explicit ableism. A few months after we met, a nurse of Heidi’s told her, “Michelle’s just helping you because she feels sorry for you. You can’t have a normal friend.” Heidi started to pull away. Michelle felt like she had done something wrong. Eventually, Heidi told Michelle what the nurse had said. That was the first of many close encounters we’ve had with ableism.

Then there were people who didn’t bother to ask Heidi to repeat herself when they did not understand her. Others would simply ignore Heidi and talk to Michelle. When we’d go to restaurants, servers asked Michelle what Heidi wanted to order. Most memorably, there was the shopping mall Santa—who asked Michelle what Heidi’s name was.

But there was also the implicit ableism. Michelle went from being seen as poorly behaved to being seen as angelic, just because she’d befriended Heidi, the disabled kid. Yet Heidi was given no credit for getting Michelle to school on time every day.

Michelle knew she needed to take Heidi’s coat off and take her books out. (This was the 1980s; Heidi didn’t have an aide at school.) Heidi developed her very own behaviour modification program. She ran over Michelle’s feet with her very heavy power chair if she was late. She offered her a coffee or cookie from the cafeteria if she was on time.

Learning together

Heidi had an amazing occupational therapist that worked with both of us. She booked us an independent living suite to learn how to take care of each other over a week. We learned how to cook together (which did result in a visit from the fire department). Michelle learned how to dress Heidi, feed her and take her to the washroom.

Heidi learned to tell Michelle to drink her coffee before she attempted to help her with anything. “It’s not safe before your coffee. I can wait. Go drink your coffee.” By the end of Grade 11, we flew to Vancouver and spent five days on our own.

We grew together and encouraged each other to do what many did not expect us to do—go to university and eventually become academics. We are in different fields but have a similar commitment to expanding research-based public conversations and policy aimed at creating more equitable and inclusive societies.

Today, 33 years after we met, we see some changes in attitudes, but we still often encounter deeply entrenched ableism. This is not surprising given that from earliest childhood, we are inundated with disability stereotypes, such as telethon kids whose survival depends on the charity of able-bodied people. As we get older, we watch news stories about burdensome disabled people or the “supercrip” who achieves remarkable things. And many of the insults in the English language are based on disability.

How to de-ableize yourself

Approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population has a disability, and that number is increasing as the population ages. Most people will acquire disabilities at some point. Signatories of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities agree to foster respect for the rights of people with disabilities from early childhood on.

But how realistic is it to expect able-bodied people to have the capacity to implement non-ableist policies and practices?

If we want to educate children about the harmfulness of ableism, we need to start with “de-ableizing” adults. There are many strategies teachers can use in the classroom—to promote inclusion, learning and relationships between students with and without disabilities. But this is not just the job of teachers. It starts at home.

Think about fears you have about disability and where those fears come from. Think about what values are at play in deciding what makes for a good school, workplace or community. How might the values be different if people with disabilities were at decision-making tables?

Heidi Janz is an adjunct professor of disability ethics in the University of Alberta’s John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. Michelle Stack is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia.

]]>news,Comment,Society & CultureMon, 28 Aug 2017 08:00:00 +0200COMMENTARY || How modern technology is inspired by the natural worldhttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--how-modern-technology-is-inspired-by-the-natural-world/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--how-modern-technology-is-inspired-by-the-natural-world/In using nature’s own time-tested strategies to create sustainable solutions to human challenges, we can't lose sight of the natural world's interconnectedness. By JOHN NYCHKA

What do a kingfisher, cocklebur pods and a Namibian beetle have in common? Besides being living organisms, they have all served as inspiration for creative human technologies to solve challenging problems.

This is biomimicry. It is an approach to innovation, defined by the Biomimicry Institute as seeking: “sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies.” There are many solutions in nature—and we are learning about more and more of them.

As a researcher in materials science and engineering, I have worked on a variety of different substances. These include biomaterials (implantable ceramics, dental ceramics and titanium alloys) and a variety of different coatings technologies (thermal barrier coatings in turbine engines, corrosion-resistant coatings and catalyst supports).

Biomimicry has helped my teams design solutions that we otherwise would likely not have explored. Inspiration has come from organisms themselves, how organisms make materials and how organisms work together. For example, based on structures observed on plant leaves, we have grown ceramic coatings at room temperature to make oil and water filters on paper and on copper mesh.

How biomimicry works

Without flying insects, birds and floating seeds would we have been able to create airplanes, gliders, parachutes or helicopters?

Watch a maple seed spin to the ground or a dandelion seed float through the air and I am sure you will start asking more questions.

Human beings are generally curious and observant and we have made many innovations by looking to the natural world for inspiration. We seek to understand and then we “copy” existing solutions. The process of biomimicry is also about being curious and observant. We follow a disciplined process to ask questions and seek answers by looking at what is already around in nature.

We first observe functions—what does the organism do? The function can be simple or complex: A dandelion seed floating through the air, or chemical signalling in the body to grow bone. We observe how an organism achieves such a function.

We then determine the mechanisms by which the functions are accomplished—we get to the chemistry and physics of the mechanisms. The final stage is to abstract the natural form, process or ecosystem into another purpose—to mimic for our own use.

Leaf coatings

It pays to pay attention. In the past, I had a research project to devise new ways to make structured catalysts (coatings that better enable chemical reactions.) The team was processing metal wire mesh—to produce ceramic hair-like structures onto which we were to deposit metallic nanoparticles.

We could fabricate the mesh, but the graduate student came to me one day and said that something “weird” was happening. He couldn’t get the nanoparticle precursor solution (the mixture of chemicals that helps to make the final product) to wet the treated wire mesh. The wire mesh was floating on the water-based liquid.

We did not understand what was going on, and so we looked at the structure in the microscope. We still didn’t understand, and so we looked to nature. I took a trip to our greenhouse on campus armed with a water bottle. The manager showed me a variety of plants that repelled water in fascinating ways, and I squirted water on them to see what happened.

I looked at a variety of plants in the microscope, and found that sugar cane had a similar structure to the ceramic coating.

I was amazed, and it was the start of a new research direction for me; I wanted to figure out how to make coatings to mimic leaves.

Hydrophobic (water repelling) coatings, based on the structures of the waxes found on leaf surfaces, are used in many applications—from paints (such as Lotusan brand) to power-generation, where efficiency can be gained by controlling droplet formation in condensers and boilers. By paying attention to how nature behaves, and by getting down to the chemical and physical mechanisms, we are able to create bio-inspired solutions from other materials and for different applications.

Growing bone tissue

In high school, my friend told me about a bone defect in his leg—a big hole in his thigh bone. He was running and his thigh bone fractured, and he collapsed. He awoke in the hospital five centimetres shorter. Why? Because 25 years ago, bone defects couldn’t be repaired very easily and the damaged tissue had to be surgically removed. There was nothing bone-like that could be put in the damaged tissue’s place to grow new bone. His perfectly good leg had to be shortened too.

Today, because of biomimicry, we can repair and regenerate bone tissue—breaking your leg doesn’t necessarily mean you also become shorter! How can we do now what we couldn’t before? We have learned how the body grows bone tissue, and we have been able to induce bone growth by mimicking nature’s processes.

We can now make glass in a lab, implant it, and new bone will grow in its place. Three months later, there is no trace of the glass. It sounds a lot like the “Skele-Gro” potion from the Harry Potter series but without the vile taste! Our innovations were inspired by ourselves—after all, we too are part of nature.

Bioactive glass, a calcium phosphate based silica glass that stimulates material resorption and bone growth, is often used in dental applications for bone grafts. The material is placed in a bone defect and over time, under the stresses and the biological environment, the glass corrodes and signals bone cells (osteoblasts) to attach and proliferate at the surface and form new bone. The implanted glass is completely dissolved and replaced with new bone.

Biomimicry and the future

And what of the future? We are seeing and learning so much more about what happens in the natural world through time and sophisticated research studies that it is difficult to predict what we might learn in the future. However, as we learn more, we discover that we have made gross oversimplifications for many natural phenomena—so we need to remain curious and observant of the natural world and get down to the details, without losing sight of the entire system.

And, since people are pursuing brain machine interfaces, perhaps we may also consider pursing some other fantasies. Tsaheylu of the Na’vi people in the movie Avatar is “the bond” between different animals—a way to feel as one with the ability to act as one. Imagine if instead of mimicking nature we could become one with it instead. I wonder what other secrets we might learn from the kingfisher, cocklebur pods and the Namibian beetle.

John Nychka is a professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alberta.

]]>news,Science & Tech,CommentMon, 21 Aug 2017 08:00:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Cold War kids: This time it’s youth, not ideology, igniting unresthttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--cold-war-kids-this-time-its-youth-not-ideology-igniting-unrest/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--cold-war-kids-this-time-its-youth-not-ideology-igniting-unrest/A closer look at Latin American tension reveals a generational divide as opposed to a political one. By RUSSELL COBB

Just when you thought the Cold War could be consigned to museums and thrillers like The Hunt for Red October, along came Donald Trump’s threats of “fire and fury” in North Korea and military intervention in socialist Venezuela.

And then there’s the even more bizarre case of Cuba.

In a twist worthy of a John Le Carré novel, diplomats from the United States and Canada stationed on the island nation fell ill in the past year due to some sort of “sonic attack.” The diplomats suffered hearing loss, nausea and other symptoms similar to a concussion.

After they returned home, an investigation only deepened the mystery. Was Russia involved? And what about the turn toward dictatorship in Venezuela: Was Cuba pulling the strings? The Cold War was back and hotter than any time since Ronald Reagan joked about bombing the Soviet Union.

. . . the new battle does not break along traditional ideological lines of right versus left . . . a closer look reveals a generational divide as opposed to a political one.

While the Cold War was a war of ideas between revolutionary movements and economic theories, this latest dust-up between Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and President Trump obscures the fact that across the Americas, the new battle does not break along traditional ideological lines of right versus left. While it may look like the Cold War Redux, a closer look reveals a generational divide as opposed to a political one.

Ideology everywhere

As a doctoral student specializing in the cultural Cold War in Latin America, I saw how ideological polemics permeated everything: from folk music to the poetry of Pablo Neruda, so much depended on one’s position on controversies like the Cuban Revolution, the civil wars in Central America and the status of Puerto Rico.

Then I went to Cuba. I studied Afro-Cuban percussion with a religious man whose only framed portrait in his living room was a photo of him hugging Fidel Castro, even though the Revolution often marginalized and denigrated manifestations of his Afro-Cuban religion.

The same people who loved to sing the popular ode to Ché Guevara, Hasta siempre, Comandante, were budding capitalists, running small restaurants or ferrying tourists around in their 1950s Oldsmobiles as a side hustle to their “real jobs.” The people most adept at the side hustle or startup weren’t necessarily more right-wing than their status quo compatriots. But they were definitely younger.

Guevara, who spelled out the ethos of the “authentic” revolutionary in an essay called Socialism and the New Man in Cuba, would have been outraged. The ultimate goal of the revolution was to replace monetary incentives—capitalism in any form—with the moral incentive of building a just, fair and equitable society under socialism.

Side jobs needed to survive

While Guevara died fighting for this cause in the jungles of Bolivia, his ideas endure: Tu ejemplo vive—“your example lives on”—is a popular billboard throughout the country.

As president of the National Bank, Guevara was happy to preside over the demise of the Cuban tourist industry. Tourism, for the revolutionaries, replicated structures of neocolonialism and exploitation. (He urged everyone to get out and cut sugarcane to help build the nation).

Today, visitors can now go on pricey tours of the small organic farms run by a new generation of cuentapropistas (small-scale entrepreneurs) that have popped up in the last decade.

“You always need another job on the side,” a driver on the road from Santiago to Holguin told me. He was a cellist in Santiago’s symphony orchestra, a prestigious position. But with a salary of around $30 a month, he could not take care of his most basic needs. “Maybe some people can do it,” he said, “but I don’t see how.”

In Venezuela, meanwhile, some of the most vocal opposition on the streets is not from the disenfranchised middle class with ties to the oil industry, but from former Hugo Chávez supporters.

Some of the protesters are poor people who have simply tired of queuing up for toothpaste and toilet paper. But others are bona fide leftists themselves, arguing that the ongoing Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has deteriorated into an old-fashioned kleptocracy.

Venezuelans fled to Spain, U.S.

Even the Communist Party of Venezuela—a seemingly natural ally of Maduro—has fractured in its response to the government’s crackdown on dissent.

Waves of Venezuelan dissidents arrived in Spain and the United States after Chávez began redistributing wealth and clamping down on private media in the early 2000s. These political refugees have given way to a far more numerous and diverse group: the “wave of desperation.”

Again, the common denominator for these dissidents isn’t so much ideology, but youth. They are university students of all political persuasions who are on the front lines of the street battles against government forces.

State-run media in Cuba and Venezuela and mass media in North America have different explanations for the tumultuous times in the Americas, but they seem to agree on one thing: it’s a Cold War revival of Right versus Left.

In Alberta, conservative media draws false parallels between Rachel Notley’s pragmatic New Democratic administration and Maduro’s Socialist Party. In Venezuela, TeleSur often depicts the struggle as one between the working class pueblo and the right-wing oligarchy backed by Trump’s administration. (Of course, Trump’s statement that the United States had a “military option” for the Venezuela crisis only played right into Maduro’s hand).

When the Cold War ended, it seemed like ideological orthodoxy might also give way to pragmatics and new political formations. Neoliberal philosophies took hold of traditional left-of-centre parties. Cuba opened up small-scale capitalism. Venezuela promised a “21st Century Socialism.”

So while it might look like we’re headed back into an age of right-wing vs. left-wing binaries, a new generation of activists across the hemisphere suggests otherwise. Those of us who remember the last Cold War would do well to think outside our orthodoxies as we process a new era of hemispheric tumult.

Russell Cobb is an associate professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Alberta.

]]>Comment,Society & Culture,NewsFri, 18 Aug 2017 22:26:06 +0200COMMENTARY || Look beyond Trump to explain the rise of right wing extremismhttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--look-beyond-trump-to-explain-the-rise-of-right-wing-extremism/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--look-beyond-trump-to-explain-the-rise-of-right-wing-extremism/In the wake of 9/11, a new generation of extremists have found an online community and an echo chamber that incites calls for action, violence.By JOHN McCOY

Our response to the events in Charlottesville should be unequivocal. The vehicular attack sought to project a political message and sow fear beyond the immediate target of the violence. In other words, this was terrorism.

It was carried out by a new and emboldened generation of fascists at a political rally in Virginia, which surprised many in terms of its scale and the baldness of its hateful message.

In combination, these two elements—the terrorist attack and the audacity of the political protests which accompanied it—have sent shock-waves through American society and a political establishment that is struggling with the plainly evident fact that far-right sympathies have permeated upward to the highest office of the land.

The immediate and sometimes visceral reaction to the events has been anger and the astonishment of many over the growth of the white supremacists, nationalists, racist fanatics and angry young white men who made up the motley crew who appeared in the torch-lit streets of Charlottesville.

Donald Trump’s insistence that both the white nationalists and the counter-protesters shared blame in Charlottesville quickly swung the national spotlight onto a figure that many blame for the attack. The President-as-enabler narrative has steadily made the rounds in columns and social media feeds.

The vitriolic political rhetoric employed by politicians in the United States, Europe and even Canada has clearly contributed to an emboldened right-wing extremist movement; in many ways they have found their safe space. Yet, we cannot explain what happened in Charlottesville solely through the lens of political rhetoric. To do so is intellectually lazy and leaves us with an incomplete understanding of the phenomenon.

The growth in right-wing extremism is a longer-term trend that rapidly accelerated after the events of 9/11. Monitoring groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center track roughly 900 hate groups in the United States and have noted staggering increases in the growth of anti-Islamic groups (close to 200 per cent since 2015).

There are a series of stimulants that have driven the growth and militancy of this movement. The first imperative in its growth has been its concomitant evolution with the online environment. Through online forums and social media, a new generation of extremists have found a community and an echo chamber that incites calls for violence and action. Individuals and communities who would have struggled to find affirmation and camaraderie in the times before organized and moderated forums and hate-fueled social media groups can now find and identify with what amounts to a relatively small but growing social movement online.

In more recent years, right-wing extremists have demonstrated an intuitive and adaptive approach to social media where they have avoided the suspensions and bans seen among supporters of groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda. In part, they have done this through altering their language and statements in order to avoid violating the rules and regulations of services like Twitter and Facebook. Subsequently, they can spread their coded message of hate and continue to recruit new adherents.

Many of these groups have spent decades cultivating a carefully crafted message, learning how to stay just within the bounds of non-criminal speech, a skill many IS and Al-Qaeda supporters in North America have yet to master. The American Nazi Party has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter, while the majority of pro-ISIS accounts are suspended within a matter of hours after their creation.

The second imperative is related to organizational innovation among the groups and social networks that make up the right-wing extremist movement. Long before the al-Qaeda strategist Abu Musab al-Suri wrote a book calling for the introduction of a decentralized, “leaderless” resistance, there were prominent right-wing and white supremacist ideologues calling for the same thing: figures like Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Resistance, and Louis Beam, a Grand Dragon of the KKK. These men called on their followers to operate individually or in tiny groups. Many answered their call and, as a result, in Oklahoma City, Charleston and now Charlottesville, innocent people were killed.

In his essay on leaderless resistance, Mr. Beam wrote that in order to avoid government and law enforcement interference, violent extremists should seek to “camouflage” themselves in more mainstream organizations, to “blend in the public’s eye the more committed groups of resistance.” We saw this weekend just how deadly these groups can be when commingled with violent racists. We cannot minimize nor excuse these acts of terrorism, and cannot continue to tolerate well-spoken supremacists in suits.

John McCoy is an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Alberta. David Jones is a security consultant based in Edmonton.

]]>news,Comment,Society & CultureFri, 18 Aug 2017 21:18:23 +0200COMMENTARY || How Canada can save the whaleshttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--how-canada-can-save-the-whales/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--how-canada-can-save-the-whales/UAlberta law professor argues sustained political will is crucial for the protection of whales.By CAMERON JEFFRIES

Our complex relationship with cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) is centuries old. The first documented whale population overexploitation occurred in the early 16th century in the Bay of Biscay off France’s western coast, where Basque whalers hunted right whales to trade in oil, baleen, blubber and meat.

Demand proved so strong that the Basques then ventured out as far as the waters between Labrador and Newfoundland in pursuit of right and bowhead whales. As these populations dwindled, so did Basque whaling, and they were bumped from the position of global whaling power by the Dutch, the English and the Americans. New technologies helped whalers spread out across the world’s oceans and deplete species after species. When the Norwegians launched the world’s first fully mechanized whaling boat in 1868, there wasn’t a whale in the ocean that could escape this steam-powered and cannon-equipped killer.

It wasn’t until 1946 that the international community concluded a treaty to globally manage whaling. The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) was groundbreaking for its time and its goal of sustainability was laudable. Unfortunately, its efforts were largely unsuccessful and overexploitation continued. The year 1982 proved to be a critical juncture for whaling: Greenpeace’s successful Save the Whales campaign created strong anti-whaling public sentiment in the West and helped prompt the passage of a temporary commercial-whaling moratorium. This moratorium came into effect in 1986 but the damage was already done. About 2.9 million whales had been killed in the 20th century and many whale populations were severely depleted. The recent spike in right-whale deaths off North America’s east coast is both a reminder of our legacy of marine mammal mismanagement and evidence of the complexity of modern wildlife conservation.

Right whales got their name by being the “right” whale to hunt. They are slow moving and can be found near the surface and close to shore. They also have a tendency to float when killed. Despite decades of protection, the North Atlantic right whale has failed to appreciably rebound. While it is impossible to know for certain how many once inhabited these waters, a recent publication lead authored by Sophie Monsarrat, expert in conservation biogeography, put estimates between 9,075 and 21,328 whales. Today, somewhere between 450 and 525 remain.

Over the past few months, 12 dead right whales have been found floating or washed up—10 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, one off Cape Cod and one off Martha’s Vineyard. This loss of 2.3 per cent to 2.7 per cent of the remaining population is a significant blow to the species’ long-term viability. While final necropsy results are forthcoming, early indications are that these whales are dying because they are being struck by vessels or getting entangled in fishing equipment.

Vessel strikes and entanglement are just some of the modern threats that now define our relationship with cetaceans. Other equally concerning dangers include marine pollutants (such as plastics, heavy metals and organic pollutants that are resistant to degradation), habitat destruction, prey species depletion, fisheries bycatch, an increasingly noisy marine environment and climate change. Together, these contemporary threats are indicative of how intensive our use of the ocean and alteration of the marine environment have become. They shatter any remnant of the once-held belief that the ocean is infinite in its natural bounty and unlimited in its ability to accommodate human activity.

Despite the existence of a right-whale recovery plan, innovation in our management response is desperately needed. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has responded to these recent right-whale deaths with temporary mitigation efforts, including restricting crab fishing in sensitive areas, offering financial assistance for participation in a real-time whale-alert system and, most recently, ordering a temporary but mandatory speed reduction for vessels longer than 20 metres operating in prime feeding grounds. These measures should also be augmented by new vessel traffic separation schemes, sea lanes and a review of permissible fishing gear in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as Barbara Cartwright, head of the Federation of Humane Societies, has argued.

If we truly want to restore ocean quality and achieve long-term sustainability for vulnerable marine species such as right whales, then Canada must start implementing space-based ocean protection to pro-actively address modern threats. Marine protected areas are geographically identified ocean regions that are managed through legally enforceable measures and, when used appropriately, help ensure that species have access to the type and quality of habitat necessary for survival.

Canada has pledged to protect five per cent of its marine and coastal area by the end of 2017 and 10 per cent by 2020—a far cry from the one per cent Canada currently protects. It is particularly striking that, to date, none of Canada’s existing Marine protected areas explicitly target habitat or areas critical for whales. We have the laws at our disposal to create whale sanctuaries and reserves that limit or prohibit ocean activities that threaten whales in key locations, at key times.

The recent news that the federal government and Inuit have agreed to protect a vast region of the Arctic through the creation of the Lancaster Sound national marine conservation area is an important step that will enhance space-based protection for many cetacean species. What is needed, however, is sustained political will to restore balance to the ocean. In other words, an ocean ethic.

Commercial whaling is no longer the threat it once was. Nonetheless, if we don’t learn from past mistakes and take steps to safeguard whales from the principal threats of our time, then we are destined to perpetuate the legacy of mismanagement and move toward the eventual extinction of these animals.

Cameron Jefferies is an assistant professor at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law and author of Marine Mammal Conservation and the Law of the Sea.

]]>news,CommentTue, 15 Aug 2017 00:46:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Investing in research is the best way to create an innovative economyhttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--investing-in-research-is-the-best-way-to-create-an-innovative-economy/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--investing-in-research-is-the-best-way-to-create-an-innovative-economy/Government has blueprint for reversing a decade-long erosion of Canada’s international research stature, what’s needed now is action.By PAUL ARMSTRONG

With Canada's 150th birthday squarely in the rear-view mirror, we should now look to our future. Our government has been staking much on an "innovation economy"—if the regular speeches by various ministries are anything to go by.

So how do we get there?

Follow the government's own evidence and part of the answer is clear: invest in research.

Like many, we were heartened by the April release of the final Review of Federal Support for Fundamental Research commissioned by the federal Minister of Science more than a year ago. The report speaks clearly to a loss of Canada's international research stature over the past decade and notes that Canada's research output has declined relative to its global peers, from seventh to ninth place between 2000 and 2014. Canada's research publication growth rate ranked only 15th, suggesting we are stalling relative to our peers.

On a per-capita basis, our research output lags behind smaller countries such as the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden and Switzerland.

Why has this occurred?

The "politicalization of research" that directs greater funding towards perceived priorities and away from independent investigator-driven research was cited as a key finding. The report also notes that Canada's federal research ecosystem is disjointed and lacks consistent oversight and evaluation. And the stipends for exceptional emerging researchers have not changed for the past 17 years.

It is estimated that there has been a relative decline in real resources for individual researchers of approximately 35 per cent in the past four years.

After the report was published, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS) surveyed its broad membership—those with expertise ranging from fundamental biomedical and clinical sciences to social sciences and population health sciences. We found widespread support for the report's findings and special interest in the need for increased support for young trainees and investigators.

The CAHS membership also flagged the need for rigorous oversight and an improved peer-review system for allocating funding, as well as more attention given to equity and diversity for who receives funding.

Finally, there was an overwhelming recognition for the need for increased investment in research. The report's recommendation for a $485-million increase in research funding phased in over four years—representing about a 30-per-cent increase—was widely applauded.

What needs to happen now?

So how do we make Canada a robust environment for fundamental research that would seed an innovative knowledge-based economy?

First, we need co-ordination, balance and harmonization across the four existing grant funding agencies: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. This could be accomplished through the creation of an advisory council coupled with the appointment of a chief science officer.

The desired result would be consistent and transparent standards for governance and inter-agency collaboration across scientific disciplines. A shared approach to the best peer review practices and the most appropriate strategy for balancing the needs and development of researchers at various career stages would be positive outcomes.

Secondly, restoring a balance of a 70/30 per cent funding distribution in favour of independent investigator-led research is key to long-term success. The serendipitous nature of research and long latent period between discovery and application of findings for human health are inherent characteristics that are well documented.

Renewal long overdue

Finally, our scientific community is aging. The report emphasizes the need for a focus on young researchers in training and early career investigators—and this should be central to the government's agenda. Recruiting the best and brightest minds while looking outward to collaborate internationally would enrich Canada's research community.

In the global context, creating an environment where students from other countries are attracted to Canada for training and where young and established scientists can flourish is critical to populating our research community. So, too, are greater international linkages and collaborations since science knows no boundaries.

In short, the government's own report gets it right. But to make the recommendations work for Canada—to build toward our innovative economy of the future—we need to start now. We need a four-year measured increase in funding to begin in 2018. We can make sure there is a return on investment in research by implementing the CAHS assessment tool that facilitates accountability for funders of health research.

The government has the right blueprint and needs to act.

The report's compelling recommendations are likely to transform Canada's ability to compete on the global stage and meaningfully contribute to the health, prosperity and well-being of current and future generations of Canadians. So what are we waiting for?

Paul Armstrong is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Alberta and founding Director of the Canadian VIGOUR Centre, a UAlberta Research Centre devoted to enhancing cardiovascular health. Carol Herbert is Professor Emerita, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University.

]]>news,CommentFri, 11 Aug 2017 01:10:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Stop those naturopaths who spread anti-vaxxer mythshttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--stop-those-naturopaths-who-spread-anti-vaxxer-myths/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--stop-those-naturopaths-who-spread-anti-vaxxer-myths/Science-free assertions are contributing to vaccination rates in some areas of the country that are below the level needed to achieve herd immunity. Here are some suggestions to counter the trend.By TIMOTHY CAULFIELD

There is growing concern about vaccination rates in Canada. While most Canadians support vaccination, recent research has found that nearly 30 per cent of the population has concerns about the link between vaccines and autism. In some parts of the country, the vaccination rates have fallen below the level needed to achieve herd immunity.

The reasons for less-than-ideal vaccination rates are complex and multifactorial, but the continued spread of anti-vaccination myths and misinformation is clearly contributing to the dilemma. Indeed, some of the recent disease outbreaks—such as the recent spread of measles in Minnesota—can be traced to the push of misleading anti-vaccination rhetoric.

Unfortunately, much of this science-free vaccination noise comes from health-care practitioners, especially those in the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) community. Not every complementary and alternative practitioner pushes an anti-vaccine perspective. But, let’s face it, many do. This must stop.

Working with my colleagues, Sandro Marcon and Blake Murdoch, we examined more than 300 websites for naturopaths and naturopathic clinics in Alberta and British Columbia. In this study, which was recently published in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, we identified 53 websites that had vaccination-hesitant language and/or suggested a vaccination alternative. In other words, a significant number of naturopaths—that is, members of a provincially regulated health profession—are explicitly and publicly spreading nonsense about vaccination. And this ignoble list doesn’t include the clinics (and there are many) that make baseless claims about how to naturally “boost” your immune system.

Some of the clinics offer warnings about how vaccines contain mercury and/or reference the frequently debunked myth that vaccines are linked to autism. Many websites provide specific recommendations regarding alternatives to vaccination. For example, one clinic suggests that “as an alternative to the flu shot, you can choose a homeopathic prophylactic injection instead” and another claims that “homeopathy flu injections” are a “safe and effective alternative to the regular flu shot.”

These assertions are, of course, misleading, harmful and completely unfounded.

Given our findings, it is no surprise there is a pretty clear inverse relationship between the use of CAM services and vaccination uptake. And research has found that use of a naturopathic care in particular should be considered a sign of risk for vaccination hesitancy.

Perhaps more important, these deceptive perspectives on vaccination are available to anyone searching for information on vaccination. As a result, they may facilitate the spread of misinformation to the public more broadly. A 2016 study on the causes of vaccination hesitancy in Canada found that the spread of “false information about vaccination online and in social media was perceived to be the most important cause of vaccine hesitancy by participants.”

So, this matters. Yes, other health-care professionals are guilty of spreading vaccine myths. Indeed, the notorious Andrew Wakefield trained as a physician. And changing minds about vaccination is not easy. Still, the spread of misinformation can hardly be viewed as a benign or constructive trend.

What can be done? We argue that federal regulators need to be more aggressive in their application of truth in advertising standards. Health Canada could also do more to shut down the marketing of completely bogus products, such as homeopathic vaccines. In 2015, the federal regulators changed the rules to require all homeopathic vaccines (often called nosodes) to have a warning that states “not vaccines or alternatives to vaccines.” The clinics in our study are either not following this rule or the information on their websites conflict with the labelling on their products.

In the provinces where naturopaths have been granted self-regulation—a move that I view as a legitimizing mistake—the colleges should force their members to stop spreading vaccination myths. But despite the ubiquity of the inaccurate representations, we are not aware of a case of regulatory action in relation to vaccination misrepresentations. On the contrary, the British Columbia Naturopathic Association has published a position paper on vaccination that supports a vaccine-hesitant approach. For example, the paper highlights a number of scientifically inaccurate vaccination risks, such as the presence of “potentially toxic preservatives such as thimerosal” and the “unnatural route of entry of most vaccines.”

If naturopaths fail to regulate themselves—which seems the likely outcome—then provincial governments should revisit how these kinds of alternative practitioners are regulated, including considering increased regulatory restrictions and third-party oversight to ensure adherence to science-based standards of practice.

Naturopaths are increasingly claiming that they are part of an evidence-informed profession. Prove it.

As recently reported, suicide rates in Alberta have dropped substantially. Between 2015 and 2016, the number of Edmontonians who took their own lives fell from 158 to 121. Provincially, that number decreased from 668 to 496.

The reasons for that development are not entirely clear, but they surely include a shift in social attitudes. A great deal of work remains to be done, but the stigma associated with mental illness has been significantly reduced. It has become much easier to ask for help.

Encouragingly, that change is now reflected in the law.

Our courts traditionally have been dismissive of compensatory claims for mental, as opposed to physical, injuries. Centuries ago, in a world of hot blood and quick death, judges were understandably too busy with broken bodies to deal with damaged minds.

Even in modern times, however, courts have been deeply skeptical of psychiatric injuries, which they consider relatively difficult to prove and easy to fake.

Perhaps most significantly, the law historically assigned little value to mental health. Even when a psychiatric illness was established, the victim was expected to either get over it or get out of the way. Life was tough and courts had no time for perceived weaknesses.

Those views softened over time, but the general attitude largely remained. Abramzik vs. Brenner, from 1967, provides an example.

Ursula and Mary were good friends. Early one Sunday morning, Mary agreed to drive Ursula’s children to church. Despite flashing lights and a ringing bell, Mary did not notice a passing train until it was too late. She survived, but two of Ursula’s children were killed and the third was badly injured. Ursula suffered a complete nervous breakdown after being told of the accident.

Mary could certainly be held liable for the children’s physical injuries, but was she responsible for Ursula’s debilitating mental condition? Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal rejected that claim. It might have been different if Ursula had actually witnessed the accident or its immediate aftermath. The court held, however, that no reasonable person would expect a mother to fall into a deep depression in such circumstances.

That explanation will strike most people as outrageous, if not offensive. Ursula’s reaction was hardly surprising. And in truth, the legal language of “foreseeability” was simply used to express the law’s bias. One way or another, courts artificially limited liability for mental harm.

All of that remains true in other countries. Canadian law, in contrast, recently embraced a much more enlightened approach.

Saadati vs. Moorhead arose from a traffic accident. The victim was not physically hurt, and he never received a formal psychiatric diagnosis, but his friends and family testified that his personality had profoundly changed.

The lower court denied compensation because there was no proof of a “recognized psychiatric illness.” The court could assess physical injuries for itself, but mental harm, it asserted, required expert evidence. Another artificial constraint.

In a remarkable decision, the Supreme Court of Canada disagreed. Justice Brown broke with 600 years of common law and held that both forms of personal injury—physical and mental—must enjoy equal protection. Consequently, while trivial or transient feelings do not qualify as injuries, compensation is now available if a careless act causes “serious and prolonged” psychiatric damage.

As the court recognized, for far too long, ignorance and apathy have pushed people suffering from mental illnesses to the margins. By itself, of course, Saadati vs. Moorhead will not eliminate prejudicial attitudes. Nevertheless, by applying the same rules to both physical harm and psychiatric damage, the court’s decision will help to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness.

Edmonton Journal columnist David Staples suggests that the rewriting of Alberta’s social studies curriculum is driven by a “social justice agenda.”

I don’t think this is true, but for reasons that would probably surprise him. I’m an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta and most of my political positions map on to the far left. Two of my main intellectual influences are Marxism and radical feminism.

Nevertheless, like Staples, I think diminishing concrete pedagogical content while amplifying exercises that encourage K-12 students to “create change” and be “agents of change” is worrisome—particularly because it is already familiar to me in the higher-education context.

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, to be on the side of change was to be on the side of social justice in dismantling established orders of patriarchy, aristocracy, empire. In the 21st century, the pairing is less reliable.

Twenty-first century orthodoxy embraces flexibility and adaptability as supreme values. No one lists rigidity as their own most admirable characteristic, or as one they are looking for in a partner or hoping to foster in their children.

But in our era, perhaps the most powerful institutions are globalized corporations that depend on “disruptive innovation” and “creative destruction.” If the docile citizen of the 19th and 20th century was someone with an ingrained respect for the existing order and a strong sense of duty, the docile citizen of the 21st is someone trained to celebrate upheaval and not to object even to their own dislocation.

Indoctrination into this is not a social justice agenda. It’s a program for habituating young people to bow before caprice.

I’ve watched in my own home faculty at the university, arts, as discipline-specific requirements are reduced in favour of increased flexibility (there’s that word again) and a growing emphasis on something called “experiential learning” in community service, work internships, and other forms of real-world engagement. This is contrasted to stodgy old-fashioned book learning and lecture-based learning.

The shift is justified on two grounds. First, that students prefer it. Much of the empirical evidence is that they do not. Second, that it better prepares students to enter the workforce.

This is probably quite true. Workplaces demand that people acquire immediately useful knowledge and practice on their feet without much explicit instruction and that they adjust themselves to existing conditions as best they can.

Few workplaces ask for competent translations of Cicero from the original Latin, or analyses of the role of women in workplace guilds in medieval German towns, or kinship diagrams of marriage exchanges in highland Burmese villages just before the Second World War or for lists of Shakespearean puns.

What, then, is the use of knowing old-fashioned stuff like that (which must mostly be learned from books and lectures) anyway?

Perhaps its most important contemporary application is in making its possessors less malleable than they might otherwise be. It generates roots going back in time and ties that bind across space. It fosters shared jokes and having a counsel of one’s own to keep.

I’m not the first person to notice that the most radical position possible in the current moment is to be an orthodox traditionalist about something: be it religion or politics or, say, the value of a rigorous education. What these provide is a firm place to stand. They make us harder to push around, harder to knock down and harder to fool.

That kind of education is one for which every young Albertan will find plenty of use in life.

Kathleen Lowrey is an associate professor of anthropology at the U of A.

Voluntary efforts by universities to improve the diversity of the Canada Research Chairs Program (CRCP) have proven to be inadequate. That’s why new rules issued by the federal government last week in an attempt to boost representation are welcome news.

But they don’t go far enough.

The new federal action plan calls for institutions to develop equity, diversity and inclusion guidelines, and a more open, transparent and equitable recruitment and nomination processes. They highlight the multi-level policy environment, including university hiring policies, collective agreements and provincial equity policies. However, not all provinces have equity policies and, even where they do exist, none have an enforcement mechanism. The guidelines also call for diverse representation on selection committees, training on unconscious biases, improving awareness of the CRCP diversity targets, candidate pools that include women, visible minorities, indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities, and a more active role for university equity officers. None of these guidelines are new. And, despite longstanding knowledge of the diversity gaps, the government has permitted universities to delay compliance by two to three years.

Since the CRCP launched in 2000, white men have received a disproportionate number of the chairs. In the first year of the program, less than 10 per cent of chairs were allocated to women. A successful human rights complaint by eight academic women in 2006 led to Canadian universities establishing equity targets. Regardless of this groundbreaking challenge, the May 2017 program report shows women make up a mere 30 per cent of all chairs and constitute a paltry 16.5 per cent of the most prestigious Tier 1 chairs, a decline from 2009 to 2016.

Universities are also failing to close the diversity gap in the representation of visible minorities and persons with disabilities, and are barely meeting the low target for the appointment of indigenous chairs. The most recent program data show 86 per cent of all research chairs are white, 13 per cent are visible minorities and one per cent are indigenous, and of that one per cent we identified only one Métis scholar and no Inuit scholars among active chairs.

The diversity gap is even worse for the Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC), a program created to attract world-class research talent to Canada. When it launched in 2008, all of the 19 recipients were men. In May 2017, only 4 per cent are women, 14.8 per cent are visible minorities and none are indigenous.

We agree with Science Minister Kirsty Duncan that these results are “dismal,” and we commend her for demanding greater equity in the allocation of research chairs. However, after two decades of limited advancement, we are skeptical that another voluntary initiative at the university level will be enough to close the diversity gap in research chairs.

Policy makers, granting councils, university administrators and the CRCP adjudication committees must seriously consult with indigenous stakeholders to consider what is necessary to achieve equity for First Nations, Métis and Inuit scholars into the program. At one per cent, the target for indigenous chairs is too low, and does not differentiate between First Nations, Métis, Inuit and indigenous scholars recruited from outside Canada. Currently, most chairs relating to indigenous issues are filled by non-indigenous scholars. They must also consult with diverse visible minority groups to explore how to close the differential gaps in representation among, for example, Chinese, South Asian, black and Arab scholars. Canadian society is also increasingly characterized by hyper-diversity, and urban communities by a majority-minority dynamic in which diverse visible minorities make up the majority of the population.

The federal government also needs to recognize the structural problems related to disciplines and funding. The majority of women and indigenous scholars are located within social sciences and humanities disciplines, which receive only 15 per cent of federal funding through granting councils. At the same time, overall federal funding to those disciplines has decreased by 12 per cent since 2007-2008. Forty-four per cent of granting council funds are allocated to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and 41 per cent to Canadian Institutes of Health Research—both disciplinary areas with lower percentages of women and indigenous peoples.

This year, the government launched yet another initiative. The new Canada 150 Research Chairs Program will fund up to 25 “internationally esteemed” researchers working in the science and technology sector, precisely the areas where women and indigenous peoples are underrepresented. Notably, the federal government did not designate funds to build knowledge and research on Truth and Reconciliation or to address the challenges and opportunities of hyper-diversity in Canadian cities and provinces. We are concerned that, like its predecessors, the new program will only serve to perpetuate the diversity gap in our national research chairs programs.

Holding a research chair can have positive impacts on one’s career by providing necessary research funding and infrastructure support, as well as enhanced opportunities and prestige for individual chairholders. If those holding these chairs remain predominantly white and male, the academic pathways to career achievement will remain disproportionately open to one demographic group in a small number of disciplines. This will continue to prevent the necessary social, cultural and structural changes needed to produce university researchers that reflect the diversity of the country, the student body and research priorities across diverse disciplines.

Malinda S. Smith is a professor in the Department of Political Science, Kisha Supernant is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and Nancy Bray is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies.

While Alberta Education revises the K-12 curriculum, it needs to focus as much on health as it does on literacy and numeracy.

The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that if we truly desire “student success in a dynamic, global society and economy,” as the government states, we cannot afford to ignore the foundational role of health in today’s increasingly sedentary, inactive and unhealthy society.

Here are five ideas to consider in re-imagining the value and purpose of health and physical education in schools.

Literacy isn’t limited to reading and writing.

In 2002, the United Nations stated: “Literacy is crucial to the acquisition, by every child, youth and adult, of essential life skills that enable them to address the challenges they can face in life, and represents an essential step in basic education, which is an indispensable means for effective participation in the societies and economies of the 21st century.”

Physical and health literacy are critical elements of education that help address societal challenges (such as health) and teach essential life skills for effective citizenship.

Physical and health literacy are just as important for the development of contributing citizens as literacy and numeracy.

While Alberta students consistently score well among developed nations in international standardized testing from the OECD—second in sciences, third in reading and 14th in math—where we’re falling down is health. Canada was ranked 17th out of 29 “rich nations” for overall child well-being in a 2013 UNICEF report. We need health to have equal priority with literacy and numeracy in our curriculum.

Health and education are inextricably linked.

All the research says the more educated you are the healthier you are, and the healthier you are the more educated you’ll be. Over and over again, the data says that if you add more physical education in the school day it won’t lower academic scores. As an example, girls who had physical education for 70 or more minutes per week attained significantly higher reading and mathematics scores than did girls with 35 or fewer minutes per week.

Our kids aren’t healthy.

The 2017 ParticipAction Report Card on physical activity for children and youth found that, of children aged five to 17, only nine per cent get 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous physical activity; only 24 per cent meet the guidelines of no more than two hours of recreational screen-time per day and 33 per cent have trouble falling asleep. Add to this what we know about deteriorating mental health and decreased nutrition for kids and we are in trouble.

Alberta has surpassed the $20-billion mark—almost 40 per cent of our provincial budget—in health spending. Now more than ever, we need to invest in a healthy future. Investing now in healthy schools, including prioritizing health and physical education, can save millions in future health costs.

We need to educate “the whole child.”

In health education we teach students to understand and take care of their own bodies; to make healthy, informed decisions; and lead healthy, active lives. This knowledge and application is essential to becoming a contributing citizen of Alberta and the world. In physical education, we teach students to move with confidence and competence in a variety of environments. As well, movement is essential to who we are as human beings—it is absolutely critical to growth and development over the lifespan.

The health and academic benefits of physical education are important, but are truly just an extension of how movement is part of our human identity and helps us negotiate the diverse terrain of life. Therefore, education should not be considered “whole-child” unless it includes education of the physical. In the words of influential education researchers Bonnie Blankenship and Suzan Ayers, “physical education is important because movement is joyful, pleasurable, provides intrinsic satisfaction and can be personally meaningful and central to the human experience.”

Douglas Gleddie is an associate professor of elementary education, specializing in physical education.

A version of this op-ed originally appeared in his blog as an open letter to the premier and ministers of education and health.

]]>Comment,News,Society & CultureMon, 08 May 2017 14:00:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Silly Disney stereotype of gay man in 'Beauty and the Beast' better than nothinghttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--silly-disney-stereotype-of-gay-man-in-beauty-and-the-beast-better-than-nothing/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--silly-disney-stereotype-of-gay-man-in-beauty-and-the-beast-better-than-nothing/Disney and others shouldn’t shy away from the message that living happily ever after applies to everyone, including LGBTQ individuals.By ROXANNE HARDE

Much is being made of the Walt Disney Company’s declaration that its live-action version of Beauty and the Beast features the studio’s first gay character, and I have problems with all of it.

First of all, Le Fou, as played by Josh Gad, does not differ substantially from the character in the original animated movie. He sings the same songs, wears the same clothes and has the same exaggerated behaviors that scream camp. What they don’t, or shouldn’t, scream, is gay man. After director Bill Condon announced in an interview with Attitude magazine that LeFou would be seen in “an exclusively gay moment,” he backtracked and stated that LeFou’s subplot is only a small part of the larger film.

When questioned on British Television’s The Mirror, Emma Watson, who starred as Belle in the movie, described the gay scene as “very subtle.” Spoiler Alert: yes, the scene, in which Le Fou happily dances away in the arms of a handsome man is subtle. It’s also sweet and lovely and inclusive and all the things I hope for in cultural productions for children.

But Le Fou as a character, though hilariously campy, becomes simply an unkind stereotype, an insinuation that gay men are effeminate at best, ridiculous buffoons at worst. He is, after all, named The Fool. Still, he might be the best that Disney will ever come up with for an openly homosexual character, given that studio’s propensity for cheap and easy categorization, generalization and narrowness of vision.

Second, there is, as expected, the usual backlash from the usual groups of haters. Schools, churches, theatres and individuals are screaming about the film, and the conservative Christian boycott led by Franklin Graham continues to gain momentum. Those people need to understand that it’s the job of cultural productions for children—books, movies, television shows, games—to reflect the realities that children face and experience. An honest film—or book or whatever—will help a child navigate the problems and concerns and truths he or she faces. It will show that girl or boy a variety of races and ethnicities, of social situations, and of alternative sexualities and lifestyles.

Children need books like Fly Away Home, to help them understand that poverty and homelessness are not moral failures, or like Heather Has Two Mommies, so they can be empathetic about nontraditional families. They should be able to see films that show them love (not sex, hetero or otherwise) between same sex couples. They should be able to see those lovers comporting themselves with care and dignity, not bouncing about like Le Fou.

However, if Le Fou is all we’re getting, I’ll take him. Last March, in this province, a young man committed suicide by hanging himself. He played hockey with one of my nephews; they went to school together; both were members, with their families, of a conservative Christian church. He was, most likely, gay.

Statistics Canada has compiled data showing that 33 per cent of LGB youth have attempted suicide in comparison to seven per cent of youth in general. Over half of LGB students have considered suicide and LGBTQ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. These horrifyingly high suicide rates are a direct result of homophobia, hate, intolerance and a stubborn unwillingness to accept alternative lifestyles, sexualities and gender identifications.

We need to make our children safe to be who they are; maybe Le Fou can help us gain some ground toward that ideal. He might be a partial rendering of a gay man; he may be a silly fool, but he has fun in his foolishness and he gets to live happily ever after, as befits any romantic lead or favoured minor character, even a gay one, in a Disney movie. He gets to live happily ever after as a homosexual and that is a message that needs to be heard by every child.

Over the past couple of weeks, celebrity environmentalists in Canada and south of the border have called out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on climate change. David Suzuki, speaking to the National Observer, claimed that “the state of Canada’s climate action was disgusting,” and that “the federal government should be ashamed.” U.S. author and activist Bill McKibben, writing in the Guardian, called Mr. Trudeau a hypocrite and stated that, “when it comes to…climate change, he’s a brother to (U.S. President Donald Trump).”

So, should Canada should hang its head in shame, as Mr. Suzuki says? Is our prime minister a hypocrite and a disaster for the planet?

No, Canada should be proud of the actions that it is taking. In most countries in the world, if a leader were to announce an aggressive carbon price of $50 a tonne by 2022, the phase-out of coal-fired power by 2030, mandatory climate-change risk disclosure of publicly traded companies and investments in clean technology, the McKibbens and Suzukis of the world would applaud. This doesn’t happen in Canada (or at least not for long) because the environmental celebrities are distracted by the oilsands and the potential that they could grow in the near future.

In short, they fail to see the forest for the trees. If Canada’s policies, implemented globally, would get us closer to meeting global goals, then we’re on the right track, and that’s certainty the case with what Mr. Trudeau is proposing to date.

Canada’s government must focus on credible policies and not make commitments they are not prepared to keep. Every Canadian prime minister since Brian Mulroney has set targets they were not prepared to underpin with policies. Politicians face a choice: they can take action and impose some of the costs of emissions reductions on the population in return for longer-term benefits, or they can act as governments have to date by making promises and kicking the can down the road when the time comes to implement those promises. Environmental celebrities would do well to consider how they can help them choose the former.

Imagine if a Canadian government were to propose a policy that, among other measures, applied a carbon tax on all industrial emissions of $65 per tonne by 2018 (the current Liberal government carbon pricing plan would be $10 per tonne) and created a requirement that oilsands facilities built more recently than 2012 either deploy carbon capture and storage technology or reduce emissions drastically by other means. Environmentalists would applaud, right? This policy was, in fact, proposed by former prime minister Stephen Harper, and you can rest assured that there was limited applause.

So, what followed? First, Mr. Harper failed to heed the lessons of the past , since the “Turning the Corner” plan did not impose policies tough enough to achieve the 20 per cent reduction in emissions below 2005 levels that was Canada’s target at the time. The policies and the targets were widely panned by environmentalists for being nowhere near stringent enough and by others for being too stringent. The choice, it turned out for Mr. Harper, was to see that there were more votes in not acting on climate change than there were on acting.

The lesson for Mr. McKibben, Mr. Suzuki and their acolytes comes in what happened next—nearly 10 years without substantial climate-change policies in Canada, and a country well off-track from meeting its targets. This is not to say that Canada would have met its targets with “Turning the Corner” in place or that it would necessarily have been implemented with Mr. Suzuki and Mr. McKibben’s support, but it’s hard not to argue that active resistance to policies seen as insufficient was part of the reason we got even less-sufficient policies. If I tell my students that anything less than an A-plus paper will receive an F, I’ll end up with a lot of students deciding that the paper isn’t worth the effort.

There’s a lesson for Mr. Trudeau in this too: Mr. Harper, in part, scripted the failure of his own policies. For a government to first set a climate-change goal and then to propose a contentious policy that fails to meet those goals seems like a self-defeating approach, but that’s exactly what has happened and continues to happen in Canada. Earlier this month, government documents confirmed that meeting the targets to which Canada committed in Paris (30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030) will require policies much more stringent than those imposed anywhere in Canada today. At the same time, the government has continued to commit to ever more stringent targets.

So, what’s the solution? Look at the policies and the oilsands in a global context. The onus is on Mr. Trudeau to convince Canadians that his policies and the expected outcomes from them are credible and deserve support. If celebrity environmentalists decide it’s in their interest to work against those policies, they may not like the choices that result, and they likely won’t be doing the environment any favours.

This might be easier if ongoing oilsands concerns were reconciled. Mr. Trudeau has made it clear that he will not strand the valuable resource the oilsands represent and is right to say that no country would. What he has said is that the oilsands will only be extracted if that activity can happen under credible climate-change policies, and Alberta’s policies, with federal backstop, pass that test. The decision of extraction under these conditions will be one that responds to global markets. If the world acts aggressively on climate change, it’s unlikely that oilsands extraction will remain high long into the future, but policies preventing extraction of oilsands offer no similar guarantee for global action on climate change. If you’re worried about the risk of climate change, focus on climate-change policies, not oilsands.

Andrew Leach is associate professor in the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta. In 2015, he chaired Alberta’s Climate Leadership Panel.

]]>Society & Culture,News,CommentWed, 26 Apr 2017 00:30:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Why we need agenda-free science more than everhttp://www.folio.ca/commentary--why-we-need-agenda-free-science-more-than-ever/
http://www.folio.ca/commentary--why-we-need-agenda-free-science-more-than-ever/At a time when evidence-free noise is pervasive and persuasive, understanding what science is—and what it isn't—has never been more vital.By TIMOTHY CAULFIELD

We need more science. We need better science. We need trustworthy science. We need agenda-free science.

These are just some of the messages I heard again and again at Edmonton’s March for Science on Saturday. Even in Trumpless Canada, there is a sense that these are precarious times for science.

I’ve been involved in science policy for 25 years. Over that period of time, I’ve witnessed the disruptive power of social media, the rise of fake news, the growth of science-free, celebrity-endorsed health trends, and the official legitimization of pseudoscience by governments and universities.

Yes, there has always been science-free noise. But now it seems more pervasive and persuasive than ever before. At times, despite decades of remarkable science success stories (sequencing the human genome, discovery of the Higgs boson particle, the development of new ways to create stem cells and edit genes), it feels like Team Science is losing the battle. A recent survey, for example, found that 28 per cent of Canadians still believe or are uncertain about the 100-per-cent debunked link between vaccines and autism (no, no, and no!).

Despite these numbers, when asked, most people will say that they do trust science. But, for many, they only trust the science that fits their pre-existing beliefs. More problematic, they find ways to dismiss the science that doesn’t. Indeed, a 2017 study found that humans are remarkably skillful information avoiders. This kind of unconscious cognitive tendency allows us to build our own realities.

Of course, this can lead to some jarring paradoxes. While sitting on a plane 10,000 metres in the sky, an individual can connect to the Internet and send social-media missives about how all knowledge is relative and that science is just one way of understanding the universe. (One assumes that this same individual will be counting on the science-informed craft to land safely at a science-informed airport.)

Similarly, we probably all know someone who becomes enraged when people don’t accept the scientific consensus on climate change but, at the same time, that individual will enthusiastically reject the just-as-strong scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs.

And there often seems a kind of willful blindness to the supernatural and evidence-free underpinnings of many of the increasingly popular (and, too frequently, government-sanctioned) alternative health practices. Do the people who endorse interventions like Reiki, to cite just one example, really believe there is a vital life-force energy that runs through our body that can be controlled by our hands?

But a good place to start is with an underscoring of what science is and is not.

As Carl Sagan said, “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” Science is not a list of facts. It is not a building, an industry or a government department. It is not the arrogant researcher who thinks he knows everything or the inspiring one who seems to. And it is not a tool in service of a particular ideology. Science is a process. It is a way of seeing the world.

Some studies have shown that reinforcing scientific thinking – such as explaining the basics of causation – can be an important tool in the fight against pseudoscience. Others have found that fostering critical thinking, including elucidation of the numerous forces that can twist science, can help to inoculate people against scientific misinformation. Of course, so many other factors are important – building trust, appealing to the audience’s values and using creative and engaging communication strategies.

Yes, context matters. But all knowledge is not relative. Please, haters, there is no need for more finger-wagging references to postmodernism, Thomas Kuhn and Michel Foucault. I am fully aware that there have always been social forces, corporate interests and political agendas that twist how science is done and how it is represented. But these failings should not be viewed as a condemnation of science. Rather, they should be viewed as a call to action to protect science and to make it better.

At the Edmonton March for Science, there were numerous posters mocking Trump and anti-vaxxers. Others heralded science’s big successes. And a few called for governments to rely on science-informed policy.

But my favourite—which borrowed from Rick and Morty, a popular science-themed cartoon—emphasized one of the reasons that, in these incredibly divisive times, science is more valuable than ever. Science is meant to be value-neutral and agenda-free.

The poster read: “Rise Above, Focus on Science.”

Amen.

Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta, a Trudeau Fellow and author of Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?: When Celebrity Culture And Science Clash

The year 2017 is especially symbolic for Canada. In addition to marking the 150th year of its confederation, it also is the third anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s completion. Two years ago, the TRC released its final report and 94 calls to action to “redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.” Amid celebrations, a vigorous debate has erupted over the gap between the Canadian federal government’s promises to Indigenous peoples and what might charitably be termed the muted delivery on those promises.

At possibly no other time in our history has so much discussion taken place, country-wide, about issues relating to reconciliation and the calls for a renewed relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples. In the midst of these ostensibly celebratory conversations, however, some examples have emerged that demonstrate just how far we have to go. Nationally, Senator Lynn Beyak recently commented on what she regarded as the TRC’s excessively negative depiction of Canada’s Indian residential schools. Her remarks are as profoundly tone-deaf as they are historically inaccurate and they led to her removal from the Senate committee on Aboriginal Peoples. Here in Alberta, the local council in Strathcona County (directly east of Edmonton) recently voted against beginning its meetings with an acknowledgment of their presence on Treaty 6 territory.

Ms. Beyak’s comments and the actions in Strathcona County demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge about issues particular to residential schools and treaty acknowledgment, but broader issues are at play. CBC was forced to shut down its comments section for any Indigenous stories because of the overwhelming hateful and racist posts, and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was recently forced to speak out against the deluge of vicious, racist comments his Facebook page received in relation to the killing of Colten Boushie, several of which the RCMP say they have forwarded to Crown prosecutors as potential hate-speech crimes.

Chris Andersen

Thus, while the discriminatory remarks of the Canadian public on Indigenous issues in online media comment sections and many social media demonstrate a general lack of knowledge of Indigenous histories, they are equally indicative of how much more Canadians need to learn about Indigenous issues and Indigenous peoples’ historical and contemporary relationships with Canada and (other) Canadians.

Part of the issue is that most Canadians do not know enough to know what they don’t know. This isn’t necessarily surprising, given that little of Canada’s public education system is dedicated to studying the complexities of Indigenous histories. And often, post-secondary education does little better—Indigenous departments, for example, are among the least-funded and most marginalized disciplines on most Canadian university campuses, if those campuses possess those departments at all.

In recent years, university campuses across the globe have attempted to create new modes to engage with the many people without the inclination or the resources to attend university courses. One of the most widespread efforts includes the creation of MOOCs—massive open online courses. Begun in earnest in the mid-2000s, MOOCs offer free online courses for student learning that allow universities to use new formats to offer subject matter to audiences that otherwise are impossible to reach.

The University of Alberta, as with many universities, has produced a number of MOOCs. One in particular that has just been launched is Native Studies 201: Indigenous Canada. This course, divided into 12 modules with accompanying video lectures, guest lectures and course notes, provides students with a broad background on an array of historical and contemporary issues important to understanding the relationships between Indigenous peoples and Canada. Although created at an introductory university level, this course is open to anyone with Internet capability.

Without a concerted effort on the part of all Canadians, the old adage that “failing to learn from the past ensures its inevitable repetition in the future” is not just a foreseeable reality but a certainty. Indigenous Canada arrives at a compelling juncture, amid this country’s 150-year confederation celebrations. Gift-giving often accompanies Indigenous celebrations, and this can be considered as such. It offers a unique opportunity to learn about the histories and contemporary lives of Indigenous peoples and their challenging relationships with Canada. The future generations of all Canadians will thank us.

Tracy Bear is director of the Indigenous Women’s Resilience Project in the Faculty of Native Studies and Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta. Chris Andersen is interim dean of the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta.

We are grateful to Dr. David Schindler and his colleagues for bringing attention to our recently published studies on the levels of trace elements in the Athabasca River, but must correct some inaccuracies they stated.

One goal of our metal-free, ultra-clean SWAMP (Soils, Waters, Air, Manures and Plants) lab at the University of Alberta is to better understand the effect that human activities have on potentially toxic trace elements that show up in soil, water, air, manure and plants. Since all trace elements occur naturally in our environment, we first need to distinguish between natural inputs and those caused by human activity. The main disagreement we seem to have is the apportionment between natural inputs to the river versus industrial sources.

In the lower reaches of the Athabasca River, we collected sphagnum moss from rain-fed peat bogs surrounding open-pit mines and upgraders because this plant serves as a natural monitor of air quality. As well, it had been suggested that heavy-metal emissions to air were affecting river-water quality.

We found that concentrations of silver, cadmium, lead, antimony and thallium—all potentially toxic trace elements—are no more abundant in the moss from northern Alberta than moss from remote areas far removed from industry.

Using precisely dated peat cores from bogs in the same area covering the last 200 years, we show that concentrations of lead in the air have been in decline since the late 1970s, likely the result of the introduction of air-pollution control technologies. Peat cores from these bogs also show that atmospheric contamination by the other heavy metals has been declining.

We have also been testing water directly, including groundwaters. We do not “filter out” particles before testing—we measure the total amount present in the water, the amount dissolved, but also the amount found in and on the particles themselves, and their mineral composition.

In our paper published recently about arsenic in the Athabasca River, we showed that both the dissolved and the total concentrations are no more abundant downstream of industry than they are upstream.

In our paper on lead, we found that it is no more abundant downstream of industry than upstream, in either size fraction. As for trace metals such as silver, cadmium, antimony and thallium, the concentrations in the dissolved fraction are extremely low, and their total concentrations are also no more abundant downstream of industry than upstream. This does not mean that industrial contributions do not exist, but rather that they cannot be distinguished from natural background levels.

The simplest explanation for all of our results to date lies in the bituminous sands themselves. Extraction and digestion of the organic and mineral fractions of bituminous sands in the metal-free, ultra-clean SWAMP lab shows that only four metals are more abundant in bitumen relative to the mineral (sand and silt) fraction: vanadium, nickel, molybdenum and rhenium.

Virtually every other element is found almost exclusively in mineral form. With most of the potentially toxic trace elements found primarily in mineral form, and given the low solubility of these minerals in water, availability of these elements to aquatic life is expected to be low.

What is urgently needed now is a systematic study of trace elements in the entire suite of traditional foods of First Nations peoples, including their chemical forms.

High-quality data for trace elements in plant and animal life is scarce, because this requires careful sampling and handling, sensitive analytical methods and rigorous quality control with proper precautions to minimize sample contamination at each step. Again, the challenge is to first establish natural “background” values for all of the relevant contaminants, to be able to understand the impacts of human activities.

William Shotyk is the Bocock Chair for Agriculture and the Environment at the University of Alberta.

We disagree with the assessment of Prof. William Shotyk that “contamination problems in the oilsands region are overstated.”

Like Shotyk, previous research (including Kelly et al. 2010, Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences) has found that the concentrations of elements dissolved in the Athabasca River were well below Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) guidelines for drinking water.

Most of the elements are carried in suspended particles, which he filters out before analyzing water samples. However, these particles are not inert — they contain a cocktail of toxic elements and petroleum hydrocarbons.

They are ingested by people and animals that drink directly from the river, and may enter the bloodstream. Considering the toxicity of one element at a time also overlooks potential interactive toxicity among elements and between elements and organics.

For example, bitumen-contaminated sediments from tributaries of the Athabasca are as toxic to fish embryos as sediments from tailings ponds. However, the contribution to toxicity of individual elements and petroleum hydrocarbons within those sediments remains unknown.

The fate and behaviour in particulates are also modified in the river ecosystem. A good example is mercury, which can undergo chemical and biological transformation into a potent neurotoxin, methylmercury, that bioaccumulates in aquatic food chains. In the Athabasca system, this has contributed to increasing mercury in the eggs of fish-eating birds and consumption advisories for walleye.

Another example is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which are more toxic in sunlight than in the dark. A thorough assessment of toxic contaminants in the oilsands region must include a broad suite of chemicals in both suspended and dissolved phases to understand the true potential ecosystem impact.

Comprehensive water quality monitoring must include water samples under a range of seasons and river conditions. Sampling the river only at autumn low flow as the Shotyk team did, minimizes the apparent contaminant problem because that is when the river carries its lowest load of particles.

Inputs from tributaries that drain the active mining area, which have higher concentrations of contaminants than the mainstream Athabasca River, and input from snowmelt, are also lowest in the autumn when soil erosion from mining activities is least. The acidity of the river in the oilsands area increases significantly during snowmelt, as the result of acid deposition in snow. This too would increase the solubility of many elements, enhancing their mobility into food chains.

The Kelly et al. papers that are so often the focus of Shotyk’s criticisms have been among the most intensively scrutinized science in recent Canadian history. Many studies by the new government-sponsored monitoring program agree well with their assessment that the oilsands industry is an important source of contaminants in the area. Oilsands developments are associated with airborne emissions of contaminants, groundwater seepage from tailings ponds, and wind and water erosion of soils from landscapes stripped of their vegetation and topsoil for mining, road development, pipelines, power corridors, and survey lines.

In summary, focusing only on a few dissolved elements as Shotyk advocates misses important pathways to wildlife and humans, particularly indigenous people, and oversimplifies the complex nature of oilsands contaminants and the Athabasca River itself.

Fortunately, the current monitoring program carried out by Alberta Environment and Parks and Environment and Climate Change Canada measures both suspended and dissolved fractions of a wide suite of water quality parameters.

Results from this program have continued to build upon the Kelly et al. papers, reinforcing the need for better, more integrated scientific efforts.

David Schindler is professor emeritus at the University of Alberta. J.M. Blais is professor of biology and environmental toxicology at the University of Ottawa. P.V. Hodson is professor emeritus at Queen’s University. Peter Dillon is a professor at the School of the Environment, Trent University. Joseph Rasmussen is professor and Canada Research Chair in aquatic ecosystems at the University of Lethbridge.

]]>Science & Tech,Comment,NewsThu, 20 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Only diplomacy can cool the Korean peninsulahttp://www.folio.ca/comment--only-diplomacy-can-cool-the-korean-peninsula/
http://www.folio.ca/comment--only-diplomacy-can-cool-the-korean-peninsula/As tensions escalate in Washington, Pyongyang and Beijing, it is high time for all parties to return to the negotiation table.

With North Korea’s threat of more nuclear and missile tests, and a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group sailing toward the Korean peninsula, the prospect of war has returned to East Asia again, but more dangerous than any time in recent memory.

U.S. President Donald Trump, after launching a missile strike against Syria and meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, has turned his attention to North Korea’s efforts in advancing its nuclear capabilities.

“North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them!” Mr. Trump’s tweet repeated his frustration with Beijing for not doing enough to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

But the assumption—shared by successive U.S. administrations and Western countries in general—that China has control and overwhelming influence over North Korea is simply not the case.

Yes, China is Pyongyang’s closest ally, and it continues to provide much-needed support to the North Korean economy, which keeps the regime from collapsing. But these connections, as close as they are, do not translate into direct control of Kim Jong-un personally nor the behaviour of his government.

North Korea is not China’s puppet. In fact, the Chinese leadership has been trying to manage a complex and unpredictable partner for years, but with only limited success.

Beijing has to walk a fine line between persuading the North not to pursue nuclear weapons and not being seen as colluding with the United States and Japan to undermine its security. Mr. Xi may be extremely upset with North Korea’s intensified nuclear tests, but he has few options in terms of leverage. A failed regime in Pyongyang, while satisfying U.S. strategic interest, may bring an unmanageable crisis very close to the Chinese capital, something Beijing will not allow to happen.

If China is unable or unwilling to “help” according to the U.S. preferences, Mr. Trump’s “armada” parade of a potential military solution will lead to disastrous consequences.

The U.S. may bomb Syria at will, which has no credible capabilities to retaliate, but an attack on North Korea will certainly trigger a massive counterstrike by Pyongyang against U.S. forces stationed near Seoul, South Korea’s capital city of 10 million residents, and within range of North Korea’s 11,000-strong artillery forces. The Kim regime has threatened to launch a nuclear attack against the United States.

U.S. military action in the Korean peninsula will also put it in direct confrontation with China, which has a mutual-defence treaty with North Korea that is still in effect.

While U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson communicated his interpretation of President Xi’s understanding “that the situation has intensified and has reached a certain level of threat that action has to be taken,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry officially denied such a change of attitude. Mr. Xi himself felt the urgency of setting the record straight by calling Mr. Trump personally on Tuesday night, emphasizing Beijing’s willingness to work with Washington on North Korea, but only through peaceful means.

While the Trump administration is beating the drums of war, tightening sanctions against North Korea and pressuring Beijing further with a carrot (trade deal) and stick (punishing Chinese entities dealing with North Korea) approach, it is high time for all parties to return to the negotiation table for a diplomatic solution.

In the short term, Pyongyang should halt its temptation to conduct another nuclear explosion, which is likely scheduled for April 15, on the 105th birthday of young Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, while Washington should suspend its expanding military buildup near the peninsula.

In the medium term, key players in the region should reconvene under the former six-party talks mechanism, or something similar, to work out the terms for Pyongyang to suspend its nuclear and missile program.

In the long term, the U.S. should take the bold but not unreasonable step to recognize North Korea diplomatically, make the transition from the 1953 ceasefire agreement to a peace treaty and stop making military or regime change threats in exchange for the North abandoning its nuclear program for good.

Wenran Jiang is a political science professor at the University of Alberta and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington.

]]>Comment,News,Society & CultureWed, 12 Apr 2017 22:00:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Scientific argument would be political winner in OHV use in Castle areahttp://www.folio.ca/comment-scientific-argument-would-be-political-winner-in-ohv-use-in-castle-area/
http://www.folio.ca/comment-scientific-argument-would-be-political-winner-in-ohv-use-in-castle-area/Government’s plan to phase out off-highway vehicle use in two provincial parks pleases no one and makes no scientific or political sense, argues UAlberta political scientist.By IAN URQUHART

Last weekend, an estimated 150 off-highway vehicle (OHV) riders demonstrated in front of the legislature in Edmonton. Their rally aimed to press the Notley government to renege on its commitment to eliminate all OHV use within five years in two new southern Alberta provincial parks. These parks, the Castle Provincial Park and Castle Wildland Provincial Park, were long sought by local, provincial and national conservation organizations. Whether the Notley government will stand firm in the face of these protests from OHV riders will be an important indicator of how science and a certain type of politics shape Alberta’s management of the Castle parks.

The science is clear when it comes to whether any continued OHV use is compatible with conservation goals in protected areas: It is not. Global Forest Watch Canada released bulletins in 2016 that detailed the existing web of trails in the new parks. They found at least 301 kilometres of linear disturbances—more than the driving distance from Calgary to Edmonton—that OHVs could use. Their bulletins made it clear that those OHV tracks on the land contribute to a level of habitat fragmentation and damage far exceeding what is needed to keep three species at risk—westslope cutthroat trout, bull trout and grizzly bear—in the Castle.

The government recognizes this fact. Its draft management plan baldly, bluntly states what the science thinks about allowing OHVs in the Castle parks. It reads, “Off-highway vehicle use at current or substantially reduced levels is incompatible with conservation goals of the parks.” The FAQ section of the plan states, “Off-highway vehicle use is not scientifically supportable in the Castle Provincial Park and Castle Wildland Provincial Park.”

If science cannot be used to justify OHVs in the Castle parks, why didn’t the government prohibit them immediately? Politics—bad politics—is to blame.

First, the government badly misjudged the situation in thinking that concessions to OHV riders would satisfy them. The premier decided in January to ban all OHVs immediately from half of the Wildland Park, but rescinded that at the beginning of March. This concession means it is riding as usual on designated trails in 2017. It did nothing to pacify OHV interests.

A history of lax OHV management in Alberta has nurtured an exaggerated sense of entitlement in the OHV community. It believes it’s entitled to ride anywhere it wants to on public lands regardless of the demonstrated, and growing, danger these activities pose to threatened species and habitats. Phasing them out of the Castle parks over three to five years, another government concession, also pleased no one.

The government’s concessions went unremarked among OHV interests, some of whom had chanted “lock her up” at the premier when she unveiled the park boundaries in January.

Second, the government’s position on concessions is blind to what will be needed in the next provincial election campaign. Winning majority governments in Alberta generally demands doing well in two of three regions: Edmonton, Calgary and the rest of the province. To this end, I would argue that catering to OHV users is not likely to appeal to many voters in the 16 Calgary ridings the NDP now represents. Holding those ridings will be vital to the New Democratic Party’s chances in 2019; finishing a less distant third in rural ridings such as Livingstone-Macleod will not be.

A more politically astute position would be to show voters in Calgary what a scientifically sound approach to the Castle would deliver. Argue that OHV-free Castle parks will let them and their families enjoy a wide range of healthy hiking, camping and other outdoor activities such as fly fishing.

Point out that while they are enjoying the outdoors in these ways, the province will be working to restore the health of threatened species for future generations to appreciate. This position, in addition to being a scientific winner, also is a more likely political winner in Calgary ridings such as Buffalo, Currie, Fort, Klein and Varsity.

As things stand now, the Notley government’s approach to the Castle parks defies both scientific and political logic.

]]>Comment,News,Society & CultureTue, 04 Apr 2017 01:13:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Alberta and Canada well placed to seize AI opportunityhttp://www.folio.ca/comment-alberta-and-canada-well-placed-to-seize-ai-opportunity/
http://www.folio.ca/comment-alberta-and-canada-well-placed-to-seize-ai-opportunity/New funding of $125 million will build on strengths of UAlberta and others in Toronto/Waterloo and Montreal to make Canada a global leader in AI.By DAVID TURPIN

Consider this: by 2025, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies—and the products and businesses they will spark—are predicted to generate at least $50 trillion in global economic growth. In the past five years, venture capital flowing to AI start-ups worldwide increased from about $600 million to $5 billion. We are on the verge of an artificial intelligence and machine learning revolution that will transform every corner of society. Canada must be a leader in this revolution. Indeed, we can be because Canadian researchers are already in the lead.

Canadians—working in Canadian universities—are responsible for major discoveries in artificial intelligence and machine learning. At the University of Alberta, we are home to Richard Sutton, the world’s foremost expert in reinforcement learning (a subfield of machine learning), and to Jonathan Schaeffer, Michael Bowling and their teams, which are well-known for creating the AI systems that solved checkers and out-played human professionals in heads-up no-limit Texas hold'em poker.

The potential application of their research is serious business. No-limit Texas hold’em poker involves decision-making with imperfect or hidden information. Consider the potential of future applications in areas such as planning medical treatments or negotiating complex contracts where decision-making also occurs in the context of incomplete information. Other U of A machine learning research is leading to new applications in healthcare such as the development of intelligent artificial limbs and a highly accurate, low-cost tool for diagnosing tuberculosis.

The U of A’s Csaba Szepesvári is collaborating with Edmonton’s ISL Engineering on Drayton Valley’s water treatment facility. With the application of reinforcement learning, which uses algorithms that adapt to the control process in real time, water filtration is being optimized and energy consumption minimized, without sacrificing water quality.

Thanks to 15 years of sustained investment amounting to more than $40 million by the Alberta government, our artificial intelligence and machine learning research groups have been steadily growing in influence and impact. Today, our department of computing science is ranked second in the world for artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data mining, and its Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (formerly Alberta Innovates Centre for Machine Learning) is Canada’s leading centre in the field of machine intelligence.

Couple the U of A’s research strengths with those found at the University of Toronto’s new Vector Institute and the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms at the Université de Montréal, and it is clear that Canada is well-positioned to build on its leadership role in the development of artificial intelligence.

But, big vision and big investments are needed to ensure the future benefits of Canada’s homegrown research expertise are realized here. On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally launched a $125 million Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, first announced in Budget 2017, which will be based in Edmonton, Toronto-Waterloo and Montreal.

Along with government, businesses across Canada are also ramping up investments in AI. In addition to the federal funding, the U of T’s Vector Institute has attracted $50 million from the Ontario government and another $80 million from 31 corporate donors. This past Tuesday, Quebec committed an additional $100 million to help fuel Montreal’s burgeoning AI sector.

Here in Alberta, RBC announced in January a partnership with our Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. They plan to open an office in Edmonton, creating high-quality R&D jobs—and economic spin-off benefits in the millions. Brad Ferguson of Edmonton Economic Development Corporation reports that, in the last 12 months, he has received more inquiries about Edmonton’s emerging AI sector than any other opportunity.

This is an exciting start but there is enormous room for growth. Alberta has a huge opportunity to diversify its economy. In Edmonton, we have exceptional people doing cutting-edge research, but all of us—in universities, government, and the corporate sector—must now act together to preserve the gains we’ve made and capitalize on our strengths. We have an opportunity and it is up to us to realize the potential. Let us act quickly now to win bigtomorrow.

The Canadian criminal justice system has a gender problem. In the last few weeks, the media has covered stories about sexual harassment in the RCMP, a judge acquitting a Halifax taxi driver of sexually assaulting an intoxicated passenger found partly naked and unconscious in the back of his cab, and the dismissal of a large number of sexual assault cases by several police departments across Canada.

This pattern is unacceptable in a country that prides itself on law, order and good government, especially the protection of democratic rights and freedoms for all citizens regardless of their gender, class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. What’s going on and what can be done about it?

Some would suggest that these cases are anomalies and are the result of a few bad apples. As this argument goes, most judges, lawyers and police officers are going about their jobs in a lawful and professional manner and it’s just the actions of a few bad ones who spoil and tarnish the reputation of everyone else working in the criminal justice system.

However, such explanations are problematic for a couple of reasons. First, if it was just a case of a few bad apples occasionally misbehaving, then you would think that by now, the criminal justice system would have come up with a way of screening for them before they were hired, or would at least have a system or program for educating them about inappropriate and unprofessional behaviour. Given the persistence and regularity of these incidents, it is clear that little has been done successfully in this regard.

Second, by pointing the finger at individuals, it lessens the likelihood of examining whether problem is systemic and determining whether the reported incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. In other words, perhaps it’s not a problem of a few bad apples, but rather a case of a rotten orchard.

Systemic problems, such as institutional sexism, require significant, meaningful and enduring solutions. While official inquiries into the various components of the criminal justice system, and strategies such as improved screening processes, gender sensitivity training, and improving protection for whistleblowers are useful, they do not go far enough.

The institution of criminal justice, which remains predominantly patriarchal, must be transformed from within, incorporating female experiences and perspectives, to address its gender problem. What is required is a large-scale effort to attract more women—and visible minorities, for that matter—to careers within the criminal justice system and ensuring that they are encouraged to stay and provided with the opportunities to succeed and advance through the ranks.

Women account for about 20 per cent of all uniformed officers in Canada. This statistic is better than it used to be, but women are still a minority, especially in the top ranks, where they hold only 12 per cent of the jobs. While more women have steadily entered the criminal law profession, recent studies have found that retaining them is increasingly difficult due to a lack of respect from male colleagues and the logistical and financial challenges in taking maternity leave and balancing family and work responsibilities. Overall, women are under-represented among the over 1,000 federally appointed judges, and there is a distinct pattern of under-representation among the over 700 provincially appointed judges. More female judges, lawyers and police officers, as well as probation and correctional officers, will go a long way in dismantling many of the patriarchal biases that are at work in many of these instances.

For example, research shows that women are more likely to report sexual assault and domestic violence to female police officers. Since the 1970s, studies have also shown that female police officers are less authoritarian in their approach to policing, less reliant on physical force, and are more effective communicators. Generally, female officers are better at defusing potentially violent confrontations before those encounters turn deadly.

Canada is a modern, multicultural nation state that values diversity and the wide range of benefits it provides. People are more effectively, and even more easily, policed when they are mirrored by their police service.

A growing body of criminal justice research shows that increasing diversity within all components of the criminal justice system helps maintain law and order and ensures justice for all. But let’s be realistic. Just like rotten orchards exist in blighted fields, sexist institutions exist within sexist societies, and so broader societal change encompassing all our institutions must occur before we ever achieve complete gender equality.

Geraint Osborne is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus.

]]>Society & Culture,News,CommentTue, 28 Mar 2017 00:30:00 +0200COMMENTARY || Canada must focus its AI vision if it wants to lead the worldhttp://www.folio.ca/comment-canada-must-focus-its-ai-vision-if-it-wants-to-lead-the-world/
http://www.folio.ca/comment-canada-must-focus-its-ai-vision-if-it-wants-to-lead-the-world/Computing scientist offers recipe to leverage world-class Canadian AI talent into a world-leading Canadian AI industry.By JONATHAN SCHAEFFER

In McKinsey & Co.’s report Disruptive Technologies, technologies containing artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to create tens of trillions of dollars in economic impact by the year 2025. Similarly, Gartner Inc. lists machine learning (a subset of AI) as one of the top 10 strategic-technology trends for 2017. Yet another technology fad? Perhaps, but it is hard to imagine any industry that won’t be affected by software applications with “smart” capabilities.

For several decades, Canada has been a global powerhouse in AI research. The universities of Alberta, Toronto and Montreal have world-class AI research centres, and several other universities have strong programs. With all the media attention AI is suddenly getting, it is critical Canada leverage this enormous technology asset.

AI technology has been widely deployed for more than 20 years—but it is invisible to most people. Whether it is being used for credit-card-fraud detection (banking), online product recommendations (sales) or in computer games (entertainment), AI is already affecting the world. But the potential of new machine-learning technology is so much greater. Soon, we will see safe driverless cars, life-saving medical advances and the Internet of Things—all powered by AI technology. But unless we do something about it, foreign companies will supply most of this technology to Canadians, even though key parts of it will have been invented in Canada.

Whereas AI in Canadian academia is world-class, what can we say about the role of AI in Canadian industry? My AI research colleagues and I are challenged to identify even a few Canadian companies that employ 10 or more AI specialists, yet it is easy to name numerous international firms that have hundreds of such employees, many of them graduates of our excellent AI programs. What does the rest of the world know that Canadian firms do not?

Montreal-based Maluuba is a rare example of a commercially successful Canadian AI company. It was recently purchased by Microsoft. This is reflective of the current state of our high-tech economy and a warning as to where we are going.

I have graduated 75 master’s and PhD students in my 33 years as a professor. Fewer than half remain in Canada; few are employed in jobs that take advantage of their AI background. My colleagues have similar statistics. We train the best and the brightest only to watch them leave our country to enrich the rest of the world, or stay here and likely work in a non-AI field of computing.

Now is the time for Canada to think big and act boldly. Canada has few major high-tech success stories to brag about. With AI, we have most of the ingredients for changing the world; now, we need the winning recipe:

Retain and grow the academic expertise. Non-Canadian firms and universities are increasingly targeting Canada’s AI talent, and with them the most valuable asset—intellectual property (IP).

Grow the AI work force. Our universities can feed ideas and graduates to industry, but Canadian industry has limited capacity to exploit this to innovate. We must create a larger and strategic receptor capacity for AI expertise. With few innovative companies and high-quality job opportunities, our graduates leave.

Promote entrepreneurship. Create an environment that encourages faculty and students to turn their research into companies of products and services. Critical to success in this area is putting in place the local support and early-stage funding necessary to maximize the chances of market success. Make it easier to quickly launch, acquire funding and build a successful business.

Diversify the economy. AI technology will touch almost every aspect of industry. We can develop new products and services and export them to the world, but we need existing Canadian companies to invest in R&D areas that employ our AI talent. By doing so, we can help erase the stigma of our economy as one of commodity extraction and exportation. Our highly skilled work force is not a resource to be extracted and then exported to the world. Move our resource-based economy to an idea-based economy.

Aspire to be the global leader in the area of AI. Such bravado may seem un-Canadian. There’s nothing wrong with having a bold vision, as long as the country follows through with a bold implementation that’s oriented toward capturing wealth from the AI expertise we create for Canada.

None of this is hard; it just takes time, a mindset change and focused funding to make this happen. There is nothing novel or specific to AI in the above recipe. Commercializing IP is how the new wealth is created in the 21st-century global economy. Canada needs to be doing that across all sectors and industries.

It is tempting to throw money at this Canadian AI opportunity and hope everything works out. By all means, start the process of putting the necessary funding in place (through federal, provincial and industrial initiatives). However, reflection is needed to come up with a vision that maximizes the chances of achieving major economic outcomes for Canada.

History tells us a top-down political approach is unlikely to succeed. Conversely, a purely academic-led initiative will not produce the commercialization to scale or marketable products and services that will have economic impact. The solution has to be one that creates a continuum between pure research (solutions looking for problems; long-term view) and applied research (problems looking for solutions; short-/medium-term view), and introduces policy strategies that support our best companies that are aiming to scale up globally.

Experience also tells us a single national initiative is unlikely to be effective. Conversely, a combination of purely local solutions will lack vision and co-ordination. The solution must be to work together under a national umbrella but have hyperlocal organization.

The end result must be to create, grow and scale up Canadian companies globally and, in the process, bring significant private and public wealth here. With innovative ideas and excellent graduates coming from our universities, the opportunities for industry innovation in this area will multiply. We can reset Canada’s future in AI technology from extraction to attraction.

Jonathan Schaeffer is the dean of the faculty of science and a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Is President Donald Trump mad, mad and bad, or just bad? This question arises because of increasing speculation about whether or not President Trump is mentally ill. Recently, mental health professionals have weighed in—most notably in a Feb. 14 letter to The New York Times suggesting that Mr. Trump is incapable, on psychiatric grounds, of serving as president.

I think a clear case can be made that President Trump is bad, but he is definitely not mad in the sense of having a mental illness. However, he is frequently mad in the sense of being angry. Mental health diagnoses are widely misunderstood, as is the difference between being "bad" and being "mad."

People who carry out bad things are often talked about in terms such as "they must be crazy," implying the presence of a mental health disorder. It is true that at times individuals who are psychotic do bad things, but this is a tiny minority of such acts. And when they occur, they are usually widely reported. An example is the tragic episode involving a murder, beheading and cannibalization that occurred on a Greyhound bus in 2008.

One of the widely misunderstood issues is that mental health professionals will only make a diagnosis, such as psychosis, when any such beliefs are NOT compatible with those held by others, no matter how odd or unusual they may be. This means that people who belong to small groups with unusual beliefs do not receive mental health diagnoses. Thus, whether or not such beliefs are factually based is not the basis for a diagnosis. Even when people believe things that are clearly factually inaccurate, they are not "mad" or "crazy" in a mental health sense. If this were not the case, individuals who believe that Elvis is still alive, that cigarettes don't cause cancer, that 9/11 was a U.S. conspiracy, that humans didn't arise from evolution or that global warming is not occurring would meet the criteria for mental illness.

There have been concerns raised that mental health professionals should not try and make a diagnosis from a distance, and in the United States (but not in Canada) there have been specific guidelines to this effect. I am less concerned about this, as this has always felt inappropriate. If somebody shows evidence of mental health conditions that can be diagnosed from a distance, it will usually be highly apparent, such as somebody calling to police to shoot them or running naked in the streets. Additionally, we constantly make judgments about guilt or innocence of individuals on trial for a variety of offences based only on what is available in the media, and without understanding all of the evidence.

Therefore, while individuals can propound many beliefs that are not compatible with facts - of which President Trump is a good example - this does not make him "mad." Is he bad? There are many reasons to believe that his actions, beliefs, statements, instability, lying, bullying, misogyny and narcissistic behaviour would make most individuals believe that he is bad. So, President Trump is not mad and bad, just bad.

We should move on from looking for a mental health diagnosis to explain why President Trump is the person he is, and just recognize how frequently bad people occupy positions of power in many countries.

Peter Silverstone is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Alberta.

]]>Society & Culture,Comment,News,Health & WellnessThu, 23 Feb 2017 23:00:00 +0100OPINION: Getting cut from teams can end kids' participation in sportshttp://www.folio.ca/opinion-getting-cut-from-teams-can-end-kids-participation-in-sports/
http://www.folio.ca/opinion-getting-cut-from-teams-can-end-kids-participation-in-sports/Competitive sports offer physical, social and emotional benefits for kids, but it can cut the other way when kids feel rejected.By LAUREN SULZ, DOUG GLEDDIE and LOUISE HUMBERT

The first time you get cut from a team sucks. The second time is probably no better, but many kids will not ever bother to try out again. Yes, we’ve heard ‘Michael Jordan was cut from his high school team and look where he ended up.’ Regardless of your perspective, cutting kids from sports is controversial.

We wanted a closer look at the practices of de-selecting kids –particularly in school. We designed a study and talked to young athletes cut from a team and their parents (52 one-on-one discussions) and surveyed coaches and athletic directors (1,667 in total).

First, de-selection cuts deep. There are negative emotional, social and physical consequences. Athletes lose friends and are forced to find new social circles. They question their own identities and can feel lost and adrift.

Their self-esteem is shaken. Time spent being physically active is reduced – no more practices and games. Cutting also deterred athletes from future participation in the sport. When no specific feedback was provided as to why athletes were cut, there was a tendency to assume low level of skill and a prediction of future failure. The same results happened when athletes were given feedback about things they can’t change like, ‘You’re too short’.

For coaches, our study found four factors that can improve the experience:

Immediacy — don’t make them wait; Privacy — don’t tell them in front of the group; Encouragement — provide options for continuing to improve; Expectations — be clear up front what you are looking for and the process of making the team

We shared these results on the Canadian Sport for Life blog and were blown away by the attention it garnered. We began to receive emails from people who shared their experiences:

From a coach: “I am faced with two sessions of cuts from a pee wee A provincial hockey team … and not looking forward to it at all.”

This reader finished with: “In evaluating these young athletes, ‘you tried your best, buddy, and that’s the most important thing. Don’t give up trying to get better, though.’ ”

From a parent: “My son is eight … he was on a Tier 1 team. His team was really good and then after the season, they had tryouts for the next season. … All of the players were called into a circle around the coaches.

“If you made one of the teams, your name was called and you were given a piece of paper to give to your parents to register you for the team … the rest were told they did not make a team. So my son and his teammates that made the team were all cheering wildly. A couple of boys from his team did not make the roster of the new team. They just sat there while the rest of their old teammates screamed with joy. This made me sick.

“I know that how the kids are being treated is wrong, but that if I complain my son could suffer consequences of being the son of a ‘troublemaker.’ Please use my story and I hope that it can save some kids from experiencing what the kids trying out for my son’s team face.”

We are frustrated and saddened that eight- and 11-year-olds and others are cut from teams every season. We aren’t saying there should never be cuts for some teams.

But that time and place should not indicate an end of participation. It is obvious the conversation around cutting kids – especially at the developmental level – must continue. Canadian kids are less active and less healthy than ever.

Sport can provide quality physical, social and emotional experiences – learning skills and concepts that last a lifetime. Do we want more kids playing sports? If yes, then sport organizations at all levels need to examine their practices to ensure opportunities for as many kids as possible.

“Who you gonna believe—me or your lying eyes?” asks an obviously lying Chico Marx in Duck Soup. In a world where direct evidence is challenged by alternative facts, and poll results and news stories are dismissed as fake news, it feels as if we are in a Marx Brothers movie, except that this is not a comedy.

Falsehoods and slander are nothing new to public discourse, but two factors make today’s world different from what we have experienced before: the vast quantities of false information flowing from spurious news sources over the Internet, and the apparent impunity afforded to people in high office to proffer blatant lies that in an earlier time would have been fatal to their legitimacy.

The Internet is not the first technology to be a game-changer in communicating facts and opinions. Three centuries ago the printing press made broadsheet newspapers the first mass media. The freedom of the press unsurprisingly needed to be protected from governments and rulers who were threatened by the forces of public opinion that the press could awaken. At the same time, laws against libel and slander provided some protection for individuals.

But the Internet is lawless. How does Hillary Clinton sue the two Macedonian teenagers whose outrageous (and highly profitable) slanders from spurious news sites had an estimated 213 million hits during the 2016 U.S. election? False news is also a means of incitement. What is the recourse of the Salisbury, N.C., man who went with a firearm to liberate children from a pizza parlour in Washington as a result of a false story on the Internet? He could have created mayhem, but at the very least has had his own life ruined because of his credulity. When statistics relating to crime or immigration are distorted, the groundwork is laid for violence and oppressive policies.

In recent years, the capacity of increasingly powerful, small mobile devices has created an almost addictive connection between users and their online links. The Internet has upended the business model for traditional media and a worrisome outcome of this trend has been the decline of investigative journalism and the difficulties people encounter in trying to assess reliable versus unreliable sources of information. How can we as citizens and leaders navigate this information overload and determine what is reliable?

Caveat emptor—buyer beware—is the appropriate frame of mind when consuming information from any news source.

The two most important resources we have in finding and defending truth are scholarship and independent journalism. Scholars go deep into the areas we need to understand. Peer review holds them to standards of academic accountability. Scientists constantly seek to disprove findings to determine the most robust understandings. Journalists help us to understand the here and now, although investigative journalism may also follow stories over a longer term as shown in the film Spotlight. Journalism also serves as a conduit for the findings of academic research to the public, creating an accessible bridge between the deep research of scholars and issues and interests of the public.

We should be careful in looking at sources of information. The Russian news outlets Russia Today and Sputnik are propaganda arms of the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin’s support for the resurgent authoritarianism in Europe and his interest in destabilizing and discrediting democracies are not a mystery or a secret. In Western democracies, newspapers and websites usually have some sort of slant or predisposition—sometimes explicit, sometimes not. This does not necessarily mean that they are unreliable with respect to facts—but implicit biases may influence their reporting.

Seeking out differing perspectives can help to sort out basic information from colour or interpretation. In the United States, as a reaction to what is going on right now, mainstream media outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post have seen a recent increase in subscribers. Facebook and Twitter are starting to confront their responsibility for the dissemination of false news. These are promising signs, but we consumers must also learn to be vigilant. Caveat emptor—buyer beware—is the appropriate frame of mind when consuming information from any news source.

Citizens should defend the value of truth and resist efforts to denigrate truth, especially by political leaders. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt argues that totalitarianism can take root in societies where people come to believe that nothing is true or false.

Preserving our sources of reliable information should be our mission as citizens and leaders. “Who you gonna believe?”

]]>Society & Culture,Comment,NewsWed, 15 Feb 2017 05:09:00 +0100OPINION: The week Moscow fell out with Minskhttp://www.folio.ca/opinion-the-week-moscow-fell-out-with-minsk/
http://www.folio.ca/opinion-the-week-moscow-fell-out-with-minsk/New Russian border controls are straining the authoritarian alliance of Lukashenko and Putin. Why did it happen and what does it mean?By DAVID MARPLES

On Jan. 26, the head of the Russian FSB, Aleksandr Bortnikov, ordered the establishment of border zone controls with Belarus in Bryansk, Smolensk and Pskov regions. He instructed border guards to monitor persons and vehicles, and to set up warning signs at approaches to the border zones. The order came into effect on Feb. 5.

Minsk responded with surprise and anger. The Russian side had not consulted with the Belarusians, said Maria Vanshina, the press spokesperson for the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Many would get the impression that the move is a prelude to full border controls, she added.

What were the reasons for the decision and what will its consequences be?

The official reason is that these borders have become loopholes for smuggling and crime. Belarus has even recognized the problem. In September 2014, President Aleksandr Lukashenko signed a decree establishing a border area, saying that both sides should co-ordinate to prevent illegal migration and drug trafficking.

But there are likely other reasons for Russia’s action. The Kremlin’s move closely follows Belarus’s Jan. 9 announcement of a visa-free regime for 80 countries. Residents of these countries can enter Belarus via the Minsk International Airport and stay for five days. The decree is about to come into effect, and could open Russian borders to thousands of visitors.

Russia and Belarus have lived under a Union State since the mid-1990s. Trains from Minsk to Moscow do not stop at the border, though travellers from Western countries would be unlikely to make the journey without a visa.

But the Union State, like other Russian-led bodies in which Belarus participates, has never been very effective.

In recent years, Lukashenko and Russian president Vladimir Putin have had running disputes over many issues—the banning of Belarusian dairy products, oil and gas prices, the building of a new Russian air base and recognition of breakaway regions of Georgia and Ukraine.

Lukashenko has also lately taken steps to bring Belarus closer to the European Union. He released political prisoners and held a presidential election without violent altercations. As a result, the EU lifted most of its sanctions on Belarus in February 2016.

In response, Russian media adopted a scathing and hostile depiction of Lukashenko—particularly agencies such as Regnum and RT. Regnum published a recent article suggesting—without any evidence whatsoever—that Belarus intends to withdraw from the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Such propaganda has prompted a critic of Lukashenko, Coordinator of the Belarusian Civil Campaign Dmitry Bondarenko, to state that the goal of the new border controls is to cut off what he terms “black cash” for the Belarusian president as part of a plan to remove Lukashenko from office.

Along with the cutbacks of oil supplies from Russia to Belarus, it will eventually prevent Lukashenko from covering workers’ salaries and pensions. A second reason for the border zone, he believes, is to nurture an image of Belarus as an enemy of the Russian people.

Bondarenko, however, goes too far. The new border zone installations rather serve as a warning to the Belarusian leadership to mend its ways, to stop the flirtation with the Europeans and to be more proactive when responding to Moscow’s requests to expand its military bases in Belarus.

In reality, Lukashenko and Putin are fellow spirits, who use similar methods to maintain authority. Belarus does not have great power aspirations, but it has to date successfully established and secured an authoritarian state that has survived for a quarter of a century. Under Putin, Russia has permitted Lukashenko the perception of independence and free decision-making in the knowledge that he cannot stray too far.

The new border zone thus represents two reprimands. One is for Belarus’s rash decision to grant a free visa regime to Western countries. The other is for its failure to support more strongly Russia’s position on Ukraine.

David Marples is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Alberta. His most recent book is ‘Our Glorious Past’: Lukashenka’s Belarus and the Great Patriotic War (2014).

Living in one of the few remaining self-avowed multicultural countries in the world, Canadians can take pride in our peacefulness and diversity. But growing from that sense of self-confidence, we have become nonchalant about the very real racism and hate that exist in our country—and in Alberta. After the tragic attack on the Centre culturel islamique de Québec, we can no longer afford this blind spot.

The response of Canadian politicians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has been emphatic: What happened in Quebec City, Mr. Trudeau says, was an act of terrorism. The attack is deeply unsettling—but it shouldn’t, sadly, be surprising. Right-wing extremism is a globalized and multifaceted movement that has a growing community of followers in Canada.

It can happen here—and anywhere.

Many of us are familiar with the steady drumbeat of the far right across the Atlantic: The growth of populist and xenophobic political parties has been matched by a surge in grassroots movements, many of which are steadfastly opposed to immigration, especially from Muslim-majority states. Empowered by the success of politicians such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France, the resurgence of European populism has emboldened a dangerous fringe that has inspired many on this side of the Atlantic.

Political movements such as the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West have drawn thousands to marches in Germany, and have active chapters in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. The vigilante group calling themselves the Soldiers of Odin first appeared in Finland, pledging to protect Finns from criminal immigrants; it has now appeared in Canada. Staunchly opposed to newcomers from Muslim states, the group counts white supremacists among its ranks and appeared in Edmonton this past summer, where it began carrying out uniformed patrols.

While it is difficult sometimes to tie these groups directly to violent incidents, Albertans are witnessing an increase in racism. By last fall—when the anti-Muslim rhetoric of then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump was gaining momentum—anti-Islamic posters and flyers began to appear in neighbourhoods around Edmonton and on university campuses in Edmonton and Calgary, mimicking similar campaigns in British Columbia and Ontario. In an especially jarring incident, a man swung a noose in front of two Muslim women at a train station in Edmonton. According to Inspector Dan Jones of the Edmonton Police Service, there were 128 hate-related occurrences in Edmonton in 2016.

We must recognize that right-wing extremism is nothing new in Canada—and in Alberta. The Ku Klux Klan has been present in Alberta since the 1920s. In the late 20th century, violent groups related to the Aryan Nations formed in this province. Led by figures such as Terry Long, neo-Nazis in Alberta carried out marches and rallies including an event in Provost, where they burned crosses.

Even before the events in Quebec City, there was acknowledgment in a 2015 National Security and Defence Committee report that right-wing extremism represents a threat to Canada. The few studies that do exist on the subject indicate a problem on a scale that would surprise many of us. A recent article in the journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, written by Barbara Perry and Ryan Scrivens, estimated that there are no fewer than 100 active groups in Canada whose membership may range from only a few individuals to hundreds. They identified concentrations of groups in Quebec, Western Ontario and Alberta.

Within this burgeoning reality, the greatest challenge that law enforcement faces is detecting and preventing incidents carried out by so-called “lone actors.” These individuals are energized by larger social movements, interactions on social media and web forums such as Stormfront and Blood and Honour that have attracted thousands of Canadian members. These spaces allow individuals to role-play, explore ideas and develop relationships with a degree of privacy.

At the same time, many segments of these white-nationalist movements are no longer confined to dimly lit bars or web forums. They are increasingly open, spreading their hatred on Twitter and Facebook, while the movement’s ideologues hold news conferences. The pseudo-intellectualism of Richard Spencer and the white-nationalist movement has attracted a whole new segment of the population: Rather than the archetypal neo-Nazi, today’s extremists seem all too normal. They hide their hatred behind terms such as “race realist,” “alt-right” or “identitarian” in an attempt to make it more palatable.

Knowing whose racism and hatred will turn violent is incredibly difficult. But as these extremist groups grow louder and louder, and as they find support in the political mainstream, their bigotry, intolerance and violence become normalized.

When the most powerful among us call for war against the other, don’t be surprised when some troubled individuals respond with unrestrained violence.

John McCoy is an adjunct political science professor at the University of Alberta. David Jones is a security consultant based in Vancouver.

In James Joyce’s Ulysses his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, observes, “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” He says this to a man he dislikes—the headmaster at the school where he teaches: a pompous anti-Semite who rails against Jews as a social problem.

Even the most casual student of history is familiar with the horrific costs of anti-Semitism. By the early 20th century, anti-Semitism became a heavily rooted ideology in European and North American society. Between the First and Second World Wars, Nazis stoked societal fears and prejudice as they slowly took over the German state.

Industrialist Henry Ford used the media to publish articles on conspiracies to portray Jews as responsible for everything from the Great Depression to the First World War. Like today, a religious minority was vilified by elites and populists eager to take advantage of a fearful public.

The parallels don’t stop there. On the eve of the Second World War, nearly one thousand Jews fled Germany on the St. Louis only to be turned away at Miami, and later Halifax. They represented only a handful of tens of thousands who sought refuge in North America. The U.S. and Canadian governments failed to aid those so acutely in danger and instead held to a narrow vision of self-interest and security.

Forced to return to Europe, a quarter of the passengers would die in the Holocaust. Similarly, today Muslims are targeted by an abiding racism, and are increasingly unwelcome in Western states.

Media personalities, politicians, bloggers and celebrities warn against the dangers of “Islamic terrorism” and the threat posed by Muslim communities that have “failed to integrate.” From Robert Spencer, the founder of “Jihad Watch,” to Richard Spencer, a leader in the emboldened “alt-right” movement, to alarmist Dutch politician Geert Wilders and now President Donald Trump, the message is the same: Islam is an existential threat to Western society, and all Muslims are a potential security threat.

For a growing far-right and populist movement, the answer to this threat can range from Trump’s entry ban for Muslim-majority states, or Wilders’ call for “no more immigration from any Islamic country” or even deportations.

Unsurprisingly, this rhetoric and existential angst has spawned extremism at the fringes. Anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant movements ranging from Soldiers of Odin to Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West have spread to both sides of the Atlantic, as has the steady stream of hate in social media and comment sections of media articles.

At the edges, “lone wolves,” whether Anders Breivik or the accused Quebec City shooter, respond with acts of terror to calls for action from the far right. When the most powerful call for war against the other, don’t be surprised when some troubled individuals respond with unrestrained violence.

In multicultural Canada, where so many value newcomers as part of our society and national identity, we must be vigilant against forces of hate and divisiveness that now violently attempt to undermine our strength and unity. Be aware that those violently opposed to Muslims are often equally opposed to inclusion, diversity, and multiculturalism—and anyone who supports it. We are in this struggle together.

While many react to recent events with despair, perhaps ironically by returning to history we can draw out not only nightmares but also dreams for a better tomorrow. In the darkest days of the Second World War, a set of ideals emerged.

Contained in the Atlantic Charter and principles espoused by the United Nations, these ideals were forged out of consensus, a desire that the world would never repeat the horrors of total war and genocide. They spoke to a desire to see a world free of fear and want. However far we seem from those ideals now, it behoves us to remember them, since so many died in their name.

John McCoy is an adjunct professor in political science at University of Alberta. Ahmed Abdulkadir is executive director of the Ogaden Somali Community of Alberta Residents.

]]>Society & Culture,Comment,NewsFri, 03 Feb 2017 23:00:00 +0100OPINION: The responsibility to protect in a Trump worldhttp://www.folio.ca/opinion-the-responsibility-to-protect-in-a-trump-world/
http://www.folio.ca/opinion-the-responsibility-to-protect-in-a-trump-world/The UN’s doctrine of humanitarian intervention is unlikely to gain traction under the incoming U.S. administration.By ANDY KNIGHT and ROBERT MURRAY

In the years since its initial articulation in 2001, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine has experienced a rocky road. Originally presented as a transformation to the understanding of one of the most vital norms of international society, viz., sovereignty, R2P has been unable to gain the necessary traction it needed from states to achieve its primary goal—to prevent mass atrocities and more adequately protect vulnerable civilians in situations of grave humanitarian emergency.

Adopted unanimously by heads of state and governments in 2005 during the United Nations World Summit, this new norm of international relations is built on three principles: 1) that sovereign states have a primary responsibility to protect their populations from four core crimes (genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity; 2) that the international community has an obligation to assist states in fulfilling that responsibility; and 3) if states are unable or unwilling to protect their population from the above four core crimes, then the international community, through the UN Security Council and in accordance with the UN Charter, has the responsibility to take timely and decisive action to protect vulnerable populations.

Arguably, the 2005 affirmation of R2P was significantly weaker than the version presented by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001 given that it served to reiterate existing conventions of international law rather than pushing forward with the essential changes to the meaning of state sovereignty presented by the ICISS. But limiting the scope of the R2P doctrine to those four core crimes helped to ensure unanimity among the 193 member states of the UN around R2P’s three core principles. Yet, 10 years on, there are still critics of R2P and some evidence of buyer’s remorse on the part of some states (e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Nicaragua, Syria, Iraq, Ecuador). R2P is seen by some as a dangerous, imperialist doctrine that threatens to undermine the national sovereignty and political economy of especially weaker states. It is almost impossible to imagine this doctrine being used against any of the major powers or in instances where the interests of major powers are at stake. In the cases in which R2P has been invoked, the principle has almost always been inconsistently applied (e.g., Myanmar, Georgia, Libya). And in places where R2P should have been implemented due to the many atrocities against vulnerable populations (Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria), the doctrine has not been applied.

Despite the challenge of UN secretary general Ban-Ki Moon to the members of the UN to translate the 2005 commitment from “words to deeds,” R2P as a global policy is still more rhetorical than action-oriented. On one level, R2P has been an important cornerstone in the shifting debates on humanitarian emergencies, raising greater awareness of human rights abuses, and has been rhetorically endorsed by a great number of UN member states, thus making it an indispensable part of global human rights discourse. Alex Bellamy, one of the global experts on R2P, has argued that it has now become an integral part of the diplomatic language of humanitarian emergencies.

There is, however, no denying that on another and far more important level, R2P has been utterly unsuccessful in achieving an operational enforcement mechanism for human rights protection and has become more of an insular academic debate than something tangibly on state foreign and defence policy agendas. The reason for this is that, effectively, only the Permanent Five members of the UN Security Council can muster the economic and military resources required to make R2P fully operational.

Further complicating matters for R2P has been the ongoing evolution of the international system from its immediate post-Cold War unipolar structure that saw the United States as the lone superpower in a multipolar structure, which is witnessing the rise of powers like China and the resurgence of Russia. The consequences of this shift in the structure of the international system on R2P have been quite evident in Syria, which has become a humanitarian disaster that states and organizations, especially the UN, have been unable to resolve given the great power interests involved between the United States and Russia.

The prospects for R2P’s success in this emerging multipolar system were already bleak before the recent U.S. election, but the election of Donald Trump casts even further doubt on the U.S. being willing to champion any doctrine predicated on intervening in instances of humanitarian crisis unless U.S. interests are directly involved. There is already a strong inkling that Trump may outsource his foreign policy decisions to conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation. One reliable source has even labelled the Heritage Foundation as the “shadow transition team” for the president-elect. We already know what the Heritage Foundation thinks of R2P.

According to the Heritage Foundation and other groups or individuals rumoured to be advising Trump’s transition team, despite its lofty and noble goals, the U.S. should treat the R2P doctrine with extreme caution. Adopting a doctrine that compels the U.S. to act to prevent mass atrocities occurring in other countries is considered not only risky but imprudent. Acting in this way would be seen to compromise U.S. independence and sovereignty. The Heritage Foundation believes that the U.S. ought to preserve its national sovereignty by maintaining a monopoly over the decisions that require it to deploy diplomatic pressure (soft power), economic sanctions, political coercion and military might, and are critical of groups thought to not have the U.S. national interest at heart, but yet purport to utilize R2P in the interest of what it calls “a nebulous international community.”

It seems probable that under the Trump presidency, U.S. foreign policy will be less favourable to the advocates of R2P and more interested in business relationships and a myopic view of U.S. national interests. The selection of Rex Tillerson, current CEO of ExxonMobil, as Trump’s nominee for secretary of state and ongoing consideration of people such as John Bolton as deputy secretary of state only furthers this concern, and presents new challenges to how a Trump White House will view R2P. As Trump selects people with close ties to, or favourable views of, the Putin regime in Russia, it becomes clear that human rights and other normative elements of international society will rank significantly lower than perceived economic benefits to the U.S.

In any event, the Trump administration will be more likely to reject the notion that R2P is an established international norm and instead treat the decision to intervene in other countries as something that should be done only if U.S. national interest is at stake.

Robert W. Murray is a senior business adviser at Dentons Canada LLP and an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Alberta.

Andy Knight is professor of political science at the University of Alberta and former director of the Institute of International Relations at the University of West Indies.

Last week, professor Brenda Cossman lamented in The Globe and Mail that the Committee of Inquiry has advised the Canadian Judicial Council to “punish” Justice Robin Camp rather than show “empathy” for his remorse and his belated effort at re-education. In a sexual assault trial over which he presided, Camp repeatedly referred to the young, homeless Indigenous complainant as “the accused,” calling her “amoral.” He asked her why she didn’t just keep her knees together to avoid the attack, among numerous other remarks. In total, the committee identified 17 instances where the judge’s questions or comments amounted to judicial misconduct on the basis of demonstrable antipathy toward sexual assault laws enacted to promote women’s equality, and reliance on long-discredited discriminatory myths and stereotypes.

Cossman, the director of the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto, was asked to work with Camp after the committee began investigating the allegations against him. She pointed out that as an educator she felt compelled to follow her professional obligations. We feel the same impulse, as fellow professors in the academy. None of us would deny the transformative potential of education—we see it every year in our students. We applaud the Committee of Inquiry’s recommendation to remove Camp from the Bench. While we all hope that as a result of the efforts of Camp’s educators, he finally understands equality values, misogyny, discrimination and, more basically, the law governing sexual assault trials, it doesn’t mean he should keep his job.

Judging comes with enormous responsibility and it is rewarded with formidable power, a hefty salary, excellent benefits and great prestige. Because of the importance of judicial independence, it is almost impossible to impose mandatory judicial education or to “fire” a judge. The responsibility of the judicial role weighs heavily on most judges, and many describe carrying this to bed each night as they replay, review, reconsider and worry about the victims and accused persons who pass through their courtrooms.

That responsibility demands the highest standards of conduct, even as it rewards judges with those privileges. A serious failure to live up to those standards, so clearly manifested in Camp’s abysmal performance, is surely a reason to lose the privilege. It is not a “punishment” as we understand that concept in law. Rather, it is a consequence of a breach of the responsibility that is fundamental to the job. Camp’s egregious conduct profoundly undermined public confidence in the judiciary.

Cossman regrets the “post-empathy” world she says we seem to live in now. But it is galling how people of privilege demand so much empathy for their errors, while according so little to others when they fail.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t realize you were drunk and passed out and therefore didn’t want to have sex with me.”

“Grab her by the pussy.” Oh sorry, says the most privileged man in the world, that was just “locker-room talk.”

Men with privilege can be our best apologists. They call upon plentiful resources to pursue their rehabilitation; they show remorse; they say “I’m sorry.” And then they want us all to just move on. When faced with consequences, they seem astonished. They call it “punishment” and cry out for empathy and forgiveness. We can all feel empathy for someone whose downfall is public and dramatic. Those who rise to great heights sometimes fall the hardest. Yet having empathy does not mean we cannot demand accountability.

Camp made multiple, serious mistakes. These mistakes had a devastating impact on the victim before him and, as the committee’s report strongly emphasized, inflicted significant damage on the justice system as a whole. The Camp Inquiry has educated us all on sexual assault law, the enduring reality of discrimination in sexual assault cases, and the critical importance of women’s equality rights to a fair legal process. Camp should accept the consequences of his breach of judicial standards. This is not a punishment but a lesson learned, for him and for all of us.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump broke a nearly four-decade-long protocol in U.S.-China relations last week when he took a phone call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen. The chat caused a diplomatic storm and sparked extensive speculation on what all this means about Mr. Trump’s diplomatic style in general, and the new administration’s policy toward China in particular.

Western media reaction ranged from ridiculing Mr. Trump for his diplomatic naiveté and carelessness to linking the call with Trump family business interests in Taiwan. Beijing, long accustomed to being the “scapegoat” during U.S. presidential election cycles, initially played down the call as a “petty trick” by Taiwan, but then became alarmed enough to lodge “stern representations” to the U.S. government.

Although a new U.S. president’s policy toward China normally takes months to formulate, it is clear the Trump-Tsai conversation was not simply just a “courtesy” call, as vice-president-elect Mike Pence put it.

First, Mr. Trump has again demonstrated that he is perfectly willing to disregard traditional foreign-policy norms in Washington, even with a country that has enough military and economic might to challenge U.S. global supremacy. Mr. Trump raised eyebrows with his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin during the campaign and, lately, with his “unscripted” phone calls with the leaders of Pakistan and the Philippines. Now, facing criticism of provoking Beijing, Mr. Trump doubled down—tweeting of course—by accusing China of devaluing its currency, taxing U.S. products and building up its military in the South China Sea. One Trump adviser went further: “If China doesn’t like it, screw ’em.”

Second, the call with the Taiwanese leader was in fact carefully planned and scripted, showing a lot more strategic thinking and planning than the general reporting has shown. Reince Priebus, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and Mr. Trump’s pick as his chief of staff, has maintained close ties to Taiwan and visited Taipei to meet with the then-president-elect Ms. Tsai just over a year ago. Stronger language of supporting Taiwan was inserted into the Republican election platform in the summer. The planning of phone calls with world leaders immediately following the election already included President Tsai, and Mr. Trump was briefed before the call.

Third, Mr. Trump is positioning himself to use plenty of leverage and suspense in his administration’s dealing with Beijing in the coming years.

During the election campaign, Mr. Trump—while promising to renegotiate the North American free-trade agreement and withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership—also repeatedly lashed out at China for “raping America” with unfair trade and currency policies. The Chinese leaders have displayed caution and restraint in not picking a fight over these accusations. This old playbook acknowledges the reality of the different China policies put forward by U.S. presidents before and after taking office.

But Mr. Trump is no ordinary candidate, and may not play by the book once in the White House. By bringing the Taiwan factor back into U.S.-China relations, Mr. Trump has reopened Beijing’s most sensitive diplomatic front line, creating potential opportunities and risks that both sides have to manage.

So is Mr. Trump reckless toward China over Taiwan? Not necessarily.

He has recently met with and sought counsel from Henry Kissinger, the man who led President Richard Nixon’s normalization efforts with China in the early 1970s. Mr. Kissinger, respected as a visionary statesman by Chinese leaders, travelled to Beijing last week to meet with President Xi Jinping. While there are many China hawks in Mr. Trump’s camp, Mr. Kissinger as a messenger may play a balanced game to ensure that things do not get out of control between the two most powerful countries on earth.

Wenran Jiang is a political science professor at the University of Alberta and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars in Washington.

These are not good days for access to government information in Alberta.

The privacy commissioner last month labelled Alberta’s access to information system a “crisis situation” as requests are routinely delayed or ignored in violation of the law. An investigation has been launched against Alberta Justice in connection with access to information requests on the “Tobacco-gate” affair. Finally, a Supreme Court decision released late last month offers a safe haven for government secrets that threatens the basic right of individuals to access personal information about themselves.

Here is how the access to personal information system is supposed to work. Governments at every level collect, use and disclose information about individuals that regularly impact upon their rights and entitlements. For example, inaccurate information on file about an individual can result in the improper termination of government benefits. One safeguard to ensure that information is not used in unfair ways is the individual’s right to access information about herself to ensure its accuracy. Access to information legislation in Alberta gives this basic right to individuals.

Sometimes, the government may refuse to disclose information because it is confidential; for example, it is a communication with a lawyer—or what is called “solicitor-client privilege.”

A procedural check is in place to ensure that such claims of privilege are not improperly asserted by government. This check is the privacy commissioner’s office, which reviews claims of privilege to ensure they are valid or warranted; when they are, the information is not released.

Without this review, the government body may hide behind solicitor-client privilege and disclose nothing. One way to do this would be for it to dump all communications about an individual to its lawyer when a problem arises and claim solicitor-client privilege, thus putting it out of reach of the individual. Given that half of access requests in this province are for personal information on file with a government body, the impact on Albertans is not insignificant.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on a case in which an employee involved in a wrongful dismissal action against the University of Calgary was refused information about herself on the basis of solicitor-client privilege. The university then refused the commissioner’s request to review this information which, under Alberta law, must be disclosed despite “any privilege” being asserted. The Supreme Court sided with the university in holding that “any privilege” does not include solicitor-client privilege, thus preventing the privacy commissioner’s review of the claim.

From a legal point of view, the decision is highly problematic. There are probably less than five types of privilege that a government body could realistically claim, of which solicitor-client privilege would be the most commonly used. It defies reason that the most common type of privilege would not be included in the word “any.” This is a flagrant case of a court replacing the clear policy preference of the legislature with its own.

From a policy point of view, government secrets can now be shielded—unchecked—in the safe haven of lawyer files. And, given current Government of Alberta practices, there might be reason to be very concerned. In an interview last year with the Calgary Herald, the privacy commissioner said of the Alberta government: “There is a reluctance to provide records for which solicitor-client privilege is being claimed. We’ve very seldom in the past even thought of compelling production of those records because they were voluntarily provided.”

Long before the Supreme Court decision was released, in other words, the Alberta government has engaged in a practice of refusing to provide the commissioner with records over which it claimed solicitor-client privilege. We might therefore expect that the government will stand pat. But this would be a big mistake.

The legislation must be amended to give the commissioner’s office the unqualified right to review claims of solicitor-client privilege. To not act quickly to amend this legislation to restore the procedural integrity of the access to information regime will further tarnish the reputation of a government beset by the most serious kinds of access to information controversies.

The 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign has been one of the craziest in the history of the United States. On the face of it, Hillary Clinton is by far the most qualified individual ever to run for the U.S. presidency. Head to head with Donald Trump, Clinton won all three presidential debates. The polls have been trending upwards for Clinton ever since that uncensored lewd video of Trump surfaced, bragging about trying to have sex with a married woman and being able to grope women’s private parts. It is obvious now that Trump is totally unqualified to be president of the world’s greatest country.

But in an era of Brexit, when pre-referendum polls had indicated that Britain would remain in the European Union, one has to be less sanguine about polls these days. A surprise can occur in October to change the trajectory of the polls. In fact, American voters witnessed such a surprise last Friday when the FBI director, James Comey, sent a letter to Congress indicating that a new batch of emails, possibly related to an earlier case of Clinton’s mishandling of classified information, was found on an electronic device co-owned by Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her now estranged husband, Anthony Weiner.

This new revelation could be much ado about nothing. But it has certainly thrown a wrench into the Clinton campaign juggernaut. Instead of breezing into the final 10 days of the campaign with a double-digit lead, the Clinton team is now doing damage control. In large part, Comey could be accused of interfering in this very crucial election by throwing fuel on an already combustible situation. Trump has naturally seized upon this opportunity to brand this new development as further evidence that Clinton is corrupt. Yet, no one knows for sure what the FBI agents have uncovered from the Abedin/Weiner device.

By inserting himself into the closing stages of the campaign, Comey is being accused of ignoring the long-standing tradition that the country’s highest law enforcement body should refrain from doing anything that could affect the outcome of elections. This action may not have a major impact on the already committed voters for either Trump or Clinton, but it could certainly depress turnout of Clinton voters and cause independent voters to turn to Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, or to the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson.

My prediction is that the new email revelations will do little to move the needle of voter preferences and may have very little impact on the final outcome of the race. Why? For one thing, the so-called “email baggage” has already been saddling Clinton for over a year. Its fallout has already been registered in the minds of the voters. In other words, if you were going to vote for Clinton after listening to her scathing rebuke of the FBI director back in June this year, chances are that you will still vote for Clinton now.

Second, Trump has not all of a sudden become an ideal candidate for the presidency. He is still the bigoted, racist, lewd, temperamental bombast that he was throughout the campaign. A leopard can’t change its spots. I don’t have to repeat all the ways in which Trump has alienated minorities, women, the disabled, Mexicans, Jews and even members of his own Republican Party. At a recent rally, Trump asked his security detail to remove a black man from the audience. That man turned out to be one of Trump’s ardent supporters. This is not the way to win friends and influence minorities.

Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder who tried to aid the Trump campaign by hacking the phones and computers of Democratic Party operatives, apparently with the help of the Russians, is now predicting that Trump will lose this election. Voters will remember when they get into the polling booths that Trump praised a sworn enemy of the U.S., Vladimir Putin, and argued that he was a better leader than President Obama.

Third, President Obama, who will be even more active on the campaign trail for Clinton in the final stretch, has approval ratings that are higher than Ronald Reagan’s. Indeed, all of the Clinton/Kaine surrogates (Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, etc) trump Trump’s surrogates any day. In addition, the Clinton team has a bevy of stars who will be on the hustings for Clinton. Just watch over the last days of the campaign how celebrities like Elizabeth Banks, Lady Gaga, Amy Schumer, George Clooney, Katy Perry, Sigourney Weaver, Star Jones, Meryl Streep, Demi Lovato, Sarah Silverman, Lena Dunham, Kerry Washington, Ja Rule, Robert De Niro, Eva Longoria, Selma Hayek, Ellen DeGeneres, Justin Timberlake and others pull out all the stops for the potential first woman to hold the office of president of the United States.

In chatting with my family members and Caribbean-American friends who live in the U.S., my sense is that Clinton will overcome the October surprise and march on to victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Millions of voters have already cast their ballots in critical battleground states. Two million voters have already voted in Florida, for instance. In each of those states, Clinton has the advantage in the early voting. Much of the early voting turnout was minorities, young university and college students, and women. The majority of these individuals have likely cast their votes for Clinton. Couple this with the dynamic Democratic Party “turn out the vote” machinery, Trump will have an uphill climb if he is to come close to the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the presidency.

(W. Andy Knight is Professor of International Relations at the University of Alberta.)

]]>Society & Culture,Comment,NewsFri, 04 Nov 2016 13:00:00 +0100Why choosing the 'least worse candidate' in the U.S. election is a false argumenthttp://www.folio.ca/why-choosing-the-least-worse-candidate-in-the-us-election-is-a-false-argument/
http://www.folio.ca/why-choosing-the-least-worse-candidate-in-the-us-election-is-a-false-argument/Why the choice between Clinton and Trump is no choice at all.By W. ANDY KNIGHT

Canada’s position next to the United States is like a mouse living next to an elephant. If the elephant rolls over, it could put the mouse’s life in serious danger. No wonder Canadians are watching the U.S. presidential election campaign in the same way a bystander might gravitate to a gruesome car crash.

Political scientists and keen observers of elections have not seen anything like this race to the bottom by a presidential candidate in our lifetime. Exactly one month before the election, a despicable “hot mike” video starring a lewd and vulgar Donald Trump emerged. In it, he is heard discussing what can only be interpreted as sexual assault. The video, shot 11 years ago, threw Trump’s campaign into a tailspin and brought a new low to American politics.

Trump has apologized (sort of) for those comments. But it is clear that what he was bragging about was more than just “locker room” talk. It is not a stretch for anyone who has followed Trump over the years to believe that he may be capable of groping women and kissing them without their consent, as evidenced by the growing list of women who’ve accused him of sexual misconduct.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks has published hacked emails of the Democratic Party campaign staff and exposed some of the inner workings of the Clinton campaign. The impression that the Republican Party is giving is that Hillary Clinton is also a flawed candidate. The argument they are making is that Hillary Clinton is duplicitous, power-hungry and secretive. For those of us who try to be balanced and fair, there is a tendency to listen to both sides of the argument before making any judgment on either candidate.

But I am careful not to buy into the false equivalency narrative—that somehow there is a comparison to be made between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The notion that these two candidates are so bad that Americans have to hold their noses and choose "the least worse candidate" is ridiculous. On any objective measure, Clinton is by far the superior candidate. Trump is demonstrating, apart from his moral and ethical failings, that he is totally unfit for the position of president.

While I understand that Trump's supporters are loyal and willing to overlook his ineptness, there is a growing sense that, despite Hillary's flaws, she has a better temperament; she actually reads and grasps the science behind climate change; she has political, legislative and executive experience; she has extensive foreign policy experience; she has a track record of fighting for women and girls, not only in the U.S. but around the globe; she is measured and diplomatic; and she thinks and speaks coherently. She has a well-vetted socio-economic policy platform that actually makes sense to most legitimate economists and other academics.

To see the difference between Clinton and Trump, all you have to do is to read any transcript of Trump's debate speeches to realize the extent to which Trump is inchoate, superficial, misogynist, sexist, bigoted and tone-deaf. Just because he says he has "the best temperament" or that he has "the best words" doesn't make it so. Trump has always been prone to self-aggrandizement, self-promotion and "truthful hyperbole" but during this campaign he has also revealed himself to be petulant, thin-skinned, intellectually not curious, dishonest and demagogic in a very scary way. Now that he is losing in the polls, he is blaming the media, international banks and financiers, his own party, and minority groups.

Recent national polls indicate the gap between Trump and Clinton is widening. Given his performance in recent days, my sense is that the gap will increasingly widen and may even hit that 15-point difference that some observers speculate it should have been already at this stage. And as we get closer to election day, the "bandwagoning" effect could kick in as independent voters, millennials and undecided voters see the writing on the wall and realize that Trump is unable to expand his base.

Every time I listen to Trump and his surrogates, I feel like tearing my hair out. But instead, I simply invoke Obama: "Come on, man!”

Is this the best we can expect of someone who aspires to be the leader of the free world? Our American neighbours should not delude themselves into thinking that somehow Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are "equivalent." They are not.

W. Andy Knight is professor of international relations at the University of Alberta.

This week’s Travis Vader murder verdict offered a vivid illustration of some of the best and worst features of Canadian criminal justice.

In Germany, on a research sabbatical, I marvelled at the fact that for the first time I was able to watch a Canadian murder decision delivered online, in real time. The verdict was read by Judge Denny Thomas, who in allowing cameras into the courtroom showed a keen awareness of the trial’s importance to Albertans and a sensitivity to Canadians’ growing desire to obtain a better understanding of the workings of the justice system.

But my excitement gave way to shock, followed quickly by horror, as I heard the judge declare Vader guilty of second-degree murder. It wasn’t the verdict itself that shook me, as the conclusion certainly seemed possible in light of the evidence. What made my jaw drop was that Thomas convicted Vader of murder under Section 230 of the Criminal Code. That section provides that if a person commits a killing during the course of another crime — robbery in this case — and meets a few other requirements, what would otherwise be the lesser offence of manslaughter can be elevated to murder, which packs a much heavier penalty.

Vader’s actions, as described by Thomas, certainly seemed to fit the bill. But there was just one insurmountable problem: Section 230 no longer exists. On Sept. 13, 1990, almost exactly 26 years ago to the day, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the clause for being in conflict with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Why then would the experienced veteran of the Alberta court have cited it at all?

The only explanation I can think of is that he accidentally excerpted it directly from the online version of the Criminal Code. After all, the Supreme Court can strike down a law, but it has no legislative power to repeal it. Since Parliament has never seen fit to do so, Section 230 has been faithfully reproduced in every physical and online version of the code since 1990. Though legally inert, it sits on the books like some sort of “zombie” clause, waiting to trap the unfortunate or unwary. And this week it struck, jeopardizing a gruelling, complex murder trial in the process. To explain the magnitude of the judge’s error as succinctly as I can: it is impossible to convict someone of a crime that doesn’t exist.

The ultimate result of the Vader case remains unclear, but I do not believe the murder conviction will stand. A best-case scenario for the prosecution at this stage is a manslaughter conviction or a new trial for murder at some point. Inevitably, there will be multiple rounds of legal wrangling over the impact of this error — an error so basic and fundamental that I’m still struggling to believe that it actually happened.

Undoubtedly, fingers will be pointed at Judge Thomas, whose brave decision to televise the reading of the verdict rebounded so unfortunately. Without question, he must shoulder some of the blame, as this should not have happened. Every criminal law textbook and annotated Criminal Code makes plain in bold text that Section 230, despite its continued appearance, no longer has any force or effect.

But the judge does not bear all of the responsibility here. After all, when a victim falls prey to a zombie on television or in the movies, we might start by chiding the person for having blundered into a herd of mindless, stumbling creatures. At some point however, focus has to turn to the zombies themselves, or, more importantly, to whatever created them.

In this case, that’s the federal government, which also bears responsibility for this debacle. For decades, a united chorus of academics, judges and lawyers has warned Parliament that its failure to eradicate the detritus of constitutional challenges past from the Criminal Code would eventually have consequences. Just six years ago, the British Columbia Court of Appeal considered whether to order a new murder trial after the trial judge left a written copy of a related “zombie clause” with the jury, but made up for it through impeccable oral instructions on the law.

Ultimately deciding that a new trial was unnecessary, Justice Edward Chiasson nonetheless issued a prescient warning: “I cannot leave these reasons without wondering why steps have not been taken to amend the code to conform to the now 20-year-old decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The law that is recorded in the statute, on which every citizen is entitled to rely, is not the law of the land. An issue such as arose in this case should not occur. It creates the risk of a miscarriage of justice and the potential need to incur significant costs addressing an error in an appellate court with the possible costs of a new trial, assuming one is practical.”

Canadian criminal justice has many positive elements. But it also has its flaws, and the state of the Criminal Code is at the top of the list. It is an open secret within the criminal justice community that the current version of the code is a bloated, unwieldy beast littered with at least 20 “zombie clauses,” archaic language and an array of confusing and contradictory provisions. Canada remains the only major common law country without a devoted law reform commission tasked with updating and modernizing its Code, and we are increasingly paying the price for this failure.

Every federal government of the past quarter-century has come into power promising reforms to make our criminal justice system better. Not one has undertaken the most non-controversial reform one could imagine: repealing provisions of the code that are no longer legal.

This is 2016 and anyone can easily locate the law with a swish of the finger. Why should any version of this law contain prohibitions that have been invalidated by our highest court? Surely, Parliament can do more to repair our most important criminal law statute, and killing off dead clauses would be an obvious place to start. Even better would be a dedicated effort to revamping the entire code — a process that hasn’t occurred since 1955.

The Vader verdict reveals the perils of failing to give our criminal justice framework the care and attention it needs. When the stakes are at their highest, it is essential that the possibility for error be reduced by making the applicable law as clear as it can be. After all, as any horror genre fan knows, when zombies start to lurk in your backyard, it’s the entire community that ultimately ends up suffering.

Peter Sankoff is a Professor in the Faculty of Law. He concentrates his teaching and research on legal issues surrounding the criminal trial process and the relationship between animals and the law. This comment also appeared in the National Post.